Hospital performs rare robotic surgery on eight-year-old boy in Vellore

Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore has successfully performed robotic slide tracheoplasty on an eight-year-old boy supported with Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) for a condition called congenital tracheal stenosis.

According to the press release, the surgery performed by the Department of Pediatric Surgery marks a revolutionary advance in minimally invasive airway reconstruction in children.

The pioneering operation was a masterclass in multidisciplinary collaboration, bringing together experts from Pediatric and Cardiac Anesthesia and Pediatric Cardiothoracic surgeons. The surgery, which adds a global dimension to the procedure, was performed by New York-based, world-renowned Robotic Breast surgeon Dr. It was conducted live via teleconference by Robert Cerfolio.

Congenital tracheal stenosis is a rare condition (affecting approximately 1 in 64,500 live births) in which a child is born with an abnormally narrow trachea (windpipe). This condition, often accompanied by heart defects, can cause life-threatening breathing problems at birth.

The standard treatment is slide tracheoplasty to widen the airway; This procedure is one that traditionally requires highly invasive surgery, such as a neck incision or sternotomy (separation of the breastbone), to reach the affected area within the chest.

The robotic platform, on the other hand, has revolutionized surgical outcomes by providing a fine dissection from the chest to the neck, providing the precision needed to achieve a perfectly airtight anastomosis.

Robotic surgery also helped the patient recover; It reduced the intubation time to just two days and the subsequent ward stay to just four days, allowing safe discharge in less than a week.

CMC Vellore gratefully acknowledges the vital contributions of Robert Cerfolio (New York) for robotic telementoring, Susheel Kumar (New York) for pediatric ECMO expertise and S. Solaman Bobby (Alliance University, Bangalore) for 3D printed anatomical models, the statement said.