New Delhi: In a landmark that gives India its place in the medical history, SS Innovations, the makes of the surgical robotic platform Mantra completed the world’s first robotic telesurgeries of the heart. The procedure were done over a timespan of two days. The first surgery was an Internal Mammary Artery Harvesting that was finished within 58 minutes and subsequently came the world’s first beating heart robotic totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass (TECAB) procedure. The delay was under 40 milliseconds with the Mantra 3 robotic surgical system installed at headquarters of SS Innovations in Gurugram and Manipul Hospital in Jaipur, which is 286 kilometers away. The Manufacturers of SSI Mantra were granted the authorization of being able to perform robotic telesurgeries from the CSDCO in last Dec of 2021.

Dr Sudhir Srivastava conducting the historic first robotic cardiac telesurgery in the world. (Image Credit: SS Innovations).

The eminent robotic heart surgeon, Sudhir Srivastava, who relocated to India from the US in order to offer efficient healthcare solutions, performed the surgery MRI under Srivastava's supervision. Apart from being the CEO, Srivastava is also the chairman and founder of SS Innovations.The procedures were overseen by Lalit Malik, Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Manipal hospital from a different remote site in Jaipur. The TECAB procedure is among the most intricate and demanding in the category of cardiac surgery. Currently, the SSI Mantra 3 is the only remotely-controlled surgery robotic device authorized for telemedicine and distance surgery mentoring.

SS Innovations never backs down and always tries to go beyond what is expected of them.

Once the tele surgery surgery milestone achieved, Sudhir Srivastava commented: “I’m very happy that we’ve been able to take a step forward in advancing surgical capabilities that can help humanity and especially regions where it is needed the most, as bridging the gaps of access to surgical expertise and enabling the highest quality of care regardless of location. In countries such as India with a large rural population and great inequality in health care, this is truly revolutionary. Telemedicine makes world class surgical skills available to rural people without them having to travel all the way to the city to get specialized care. It provides timely care and reduces the logistical and economic burden on the families. This has always been our vision, to provide affordable and quick access to surgery and it is now augmented reality which provides such an opportunity to reach skilled surgeons to every nation.”