Shanghai, China - On the morning of March 3, Toumai^® four-arm endoscopic surgical robot (hereinafter referred to as Toumai^® Robot) of Shanghai MicroPort MedBot (Group) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "MicroPort^® MedBot^®") completed the first robot-assisted 5G remote online animal surgery for thoracic surgery in China. This surgery was conducted by Qingquan Luo, Director of Surgical Oncology, Shanghai Chest Hospital, with the cooperation of Deputy Chief Physician Jia Huang, attending physician Jiantao Li, attending physician Long Jiang, Dr. Yu Tian, Dr. Hongda Zhu and Director of Anesthesiology Yaofeng Shen. It is the first successful breakthrough of Toumai^® Robot in thoracic surgery after completing 5G remote robotic surgeries in hepatobiliary surgery, gastrointestinal surgery and urological surgery. It is also a new attempt in 5G remote robotic surgery in Shanghai Chest Hospital, which will help promote clinical application of domestic robots and benefit more patients.

This animal surgery was carried out in the interconnected remote surgery control hall of MicroPort^® MedBot^® Group. Director Qingquan Luo's team communicated with the clinical and technical departments of MicroPort^® MedBot^® Group to determine the surgical execution plan and start the operation.

At the secondary end of remote control, Dr. Jiantao Li and Dr. Yu Tian first made a port in the animal's chest and placed a puncture device at the animal's surgical bedside, and connected a robotic arm to place the endoscope and surgical instruments. Deputy Director Jia Huang confirmed that the surgery could start in the operating room, and after switching the control of the robot operation to the remote end, he monitored the operation situation in the operating room and was on standby at any time.

At the primary end of remote control of the Toumai^® robot, Director Qingquan Luo officially started the operation after receiving the control. With the help of the HD visual field of the Toumai^® robot, Director Luo controlled the robotic arm to complete the anatomic separation of the right upper lung lobe easily and quickly, and separated the bronchus and pulmonary arteries and veins, and completed the lobectomy. The surgery took less than an hour, with almost no bleeding, and the animal's vital signs were stable.

In this 5G surgery, in order to ensure the smooth transmission of control data and three-dimensional images, the interconnectivity technology team of MicroPort^® MedBot^® Group combined remote control and 5G IoT slicing communication technology to ensure the stable transmission of 5G network. In addition, in order to avoid surgical misoperation caused by network problems, the technical team conducted real-time network detection in the 5G surgical system, taking 0.5 millisecond as the detection cycle to ensure timely capture of network problems and keep surgical safety as much as possible.

During the entire remote control operation, the Toumai^® robot operated normally at the primary and secondary ends, the network was stable, and no unexpected conditions such as signal interruption occurred. After the surgery, Director Qingquan Luo said that he was very satisfied with the surgical process, and there was no significant difference in experience compared with the routine robotic surgery of Toumai^® in the same operating room.