Quảng Nam General Hospital has used a robotic arm to support arthroscopic shoulder surgery on two patients, Báo Đà Nẵng reported on October 28. The operations were carried out on October 15 in the hospital's new operating suite by a team led by Dr Nguyễn Tam Thăng, the hospital's deputy director and head of its Orthopaedic Trauma and Burns Centre.
Both patients had left rotator cuff injuries, one of them a tear. The robotic arm holds and steadies the endoscopic camera, helping the surgeon see the damage. The paper stresses that the robot does not perform any surgical action itself: the surgeon carries out the procedure and decides on treatment.
One patient has been discharged and both recovered without complications, the report says. It describes the result as an initial success and does not claim the hospital is the first in the region to use the technique.
The report does not give the cost to patients or say whether the service will be offered more widely.
Sources
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