Robot assists in small intestinetransplant in NW China

A hospital in northwest China's Shaanxi Province successfully performed a rare and difficult small intestine transplant with the assistance of a robot.

More than two weeks after the operation on Aug. 30, the receiver, 29-year-old Yang Lin, is recovering, said Zhao Qingchuan, deputy head of Xijing Hospital of Digestive Diseases affiliated to the Forth Military Medical University in Xi'an, the provincial capital.

The hospital claimed it as the world's first small intestine transplant involving the robotic device, after searching through a widely-used global medical database.

During the surgery, the robot, controlled by the doctor, inserted its arms into several small holes dug on the abdomen of 53-year-old Yang Xiaoming to take out a 1.8-meter-long section of his small intestine, according to Wu Guosheng, who performed the operation.

"It leaves a much smaller cut on the donor's abdomen and is more conducive to his or her recovery after surgery," Wu said.

The organ was transplanted into his son Yang Lin, who had most of his own small intestine removed due to severe intestinal failure. The small intestine of a healthy person is six to seven meters long, while the remaining part of the young Yang's was 20 centimeters.

The small intestine transplant operation is deemed as one of the most challenging among all organ transplantation and less than 3,000 surgeries have been performed worldwide, Zhao said.

Because the small intestine is abundant with lymphoid tissue, it is more likely to strongly react to rejection after surgery, Zhao said. Endi