The Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center of Sun Yat-sen University announced that a remote ophthalmic surgery was successfully performed in Urumqi, Xinjiang on the 2nd. This is the world's first remotely robot-assisted subretinal injection surgery.
According to Science and Technology Daily and IT Home reports, this cross-4,200-kilometer remote surgery used a fully independently developed Chinese domestic 5G ophthalmic surgical robot as its core platform. It marks a key leap for China in the field of high-precision remote ophthalmic surgery, moving officially from “feasibility” to “practicality”. Against the backdrop of relatively scarce and unevenly distributed high-quality ophthalmic medical resources in China, the remote application of such technologies has great significance for patients in remote areas to access high-level diagnosis and treatment.
According to reports, the surgery was led by Professor Lin Haotian’s team from the Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center of Sun Yat-sen University, in collaboration with Professor Yang Bo’s team from the General Hospital of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, Professor Huang Kai’s team from the School of Computer Science at Sun Yat-sen University, and Guangzhou Micromu Medical Devices Co., Ltd.
The core platform of this surgery is a fully independently developed domestic 5G ophthalmic surgical robot system. The system provided real-time connection between the main control terminal in Guangzhou and the surgical terminal in Urumqi, enabling the surgeon to perform micron-level delicate operations on the eye fundus remotely.
It is introduced that subretinal injection is a common surgical method for treating blinding ocular diseases such as submacular hemorrhage, requiring extremely high operation stability and extensive surgeon experience.
To meet the requirements of this surgery, Professor Lin Haotian’s team, together with Professor Huang Kai’s team and Guangzhou Micromu, persisted in advancing the development of the remote ophthalmic surgical robot platform. They also collaborated with Jiaxing Zhihong Technology and China Telecom to build a system equipped with “remote doctor manipulation”, “micron-level motion precision”, and “real-time high-definition 3D perception”.
Professor Lin Haotian, Director of Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, stated that the success of this surgery means that high-quality ophthalmic resources can now be delivered to border regions via remote means, and also validates the safety of domestic high-precision surgical robots in complex ophthalmic procedures. In the future, they will continue to explore modes integrating remote and intelligent technologies, promoting accessibility to high-level ophthalmic medical resources.