On April 1, 2022, the team led by Professor Sun Dawei from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of PUMCH successfully completed the first single-port robotic cystectomy in China for a 32-year-old female with ovarian cyst. The operation was performed through one port around umbilicus and the patient was discharged the second day after the surgery. This is the first clinically registered gynecological operation using the domestic Shurui multi-arm single-port robot, which is a laparoscopic robotic surgery system invented domestically.

Transumbilical single-port laparoscopic surgery is an endoscopic surgery performed through an umbilical incision featuring less invasiveness, less pain, faster recovery and leaving no new scars. Professor Sun Dawei’s team was the first to carry out a single-port laparoscopic gynecological surgery in China. Since 2011, more than 500 surgeries of this type have been completed by Professor Sun’s team, which puts PUMCH in the top-ranking spot nationwide in terms of the diversity and the number of performing single-port laparoscopic surgeries. The team won the support of National High Technology Research and Development Plan, edited and published the first Chinese book on single-port laparoscopic surgery in gynecology, led the formulation of the “Expert Consensus on Single-port Laparoscopic Gynecologic Surgery”, and won the third prize of the 2017 Beijing Medical Science and Technology Award.

Traditional laparoscopic single-port surgical instruments cannot fully unfold when entering through a single incision, resulting in the “chopstick” effect. Therefore, traditional laparoscopic single-port surgery is difficult to perform and requires superb surgical skills. The domestic single-port robot with snake-shaped arm can form an operating triangle after it enters the patient’s body and avoid the “chopstick” effect perfectly. Under the remote control of the chief surgeon, the robot can operate dexterously in a stable and accurate way, enable eye-hand synchronization, minimum latency, and tremor filtration.

On the morning of April 1, Professor Sun Dawei sat in front of the console of the robotic surgical system and skillfully removed the patient’s ovarian teratoma in 35 minutes. The blood loss of the surgery was only 5ml and patient’s post-operation umbilical wound was only 2.5cm. Surgeries performed by single-port robots combined the advantages of traditional transumbilical single-port surgeries, which is minimally invasive and good-looking, and that of traditional robotic surgeries, which is famous for its stability and synergistic movement between surgeon’s eye and hands. PUMCH will continue to bring into play its leading advantages in gynecological single-port laparoscopic surgery in China and strive to keep pace with the world-class techniques so that new technologies can better benefit patients.

Group photo of the surgery team led by Professor Sun Dawei of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Arms of the robot in the operation

Correspondent: Ren Chang

Reporter: Fu Tanping

Picture: The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Translator: Liu Haiyan

Editor: Zhang Zhibo and Wang Yao