Lviv specialists from St. Nicholas Children's Hospital successfully mastered Ukraine's only robot surgeon with built-in artificial intelligence, Senhance, and saved a child's organ without incisions or blood loss.
Lviv specialists from St. Nicholas Children's Hospital successfully mastered Ukraine's only robot surgeon with built-in artificial intelligence, Senhance, and saved a child's organ without incisions or blood loss.
One of the first patients operated on using an innovative AI system was 8-year-old Olezhyk from Ternopil region, the press service of St. Nicholas Hospital reports . The parents learned about their son's illness by chance during a routine ultrasound. At the St. Nicholas Children's Hospital of the First Medical Association of Lviv, the child was diagnosed with hydronephrosis. This is a pathology that leads to urinary retention and gradual destruction of the kidney. Only a high-precision operation could save the organ.
To operate on Olezhyk and four other children, Vilnius University Professor Narimantas Evaldas Samalavičius, one of the leading European specialists in robotic surgery who has performed over 1,000 such procedures, arrived in Lviv. Together with his Lithuanian colleague, the Lviv surgeons performed the procedure using the Senhance robotic system.
The main advantage of the Senhance system is the built-in artificial intelligence, which automatically directs the camera according to the surgeon's eye movements and allows you to distinguish the smallest tissue structures. In addition to artificial intelligence, the system uses ultra-thin instruments with a diameter of only 3 mm, which allows you to operate without damaging blood vessels.
During the operation, doctors removed the defective segment of the kidney and reconstructed the organ. Thanks to the high precision of AI technologies, the intervention went without complications.
"You have exceeded all my expectations. This is a European-style hospital. I am glad that, despite the tense situation in Ukraine, one of the most modern robotic systems is starting to work here. This is about moving together with world medicine, about reducing human error, speedy recovery and rehabilitation of the patient after the intervention," concluded Narimantas Evaldas Samalavičius.
Now, 8-year-old Olezhyk has fully recovered and returned home. Lviv doctors already perform about two high-tech surgeries a week using artificial intelligence and the Senhance system, providing assistance to children from all over Ukraine.
