Robot-heart-transplant KSA

A Saudi surgeon has performed the world’s first robotic heart transplant on a teenager in the Kingdom.

The two-and-a-half-hour surgery, led by Saudi cardiac surgeon Dr. Feras Khaliel at the Kingdom’s King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center (KFSHRC), was carried out on a 16-year-old suffering from stage four heart failure.

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Implanting the robotic heart – which helps keep blood pumping around the body - involved accessing and replacing the heart without making an incision in the chest.

It was preceded by weeks of meticulous planning, the hospital – a specialized training center for robotic organ transplant surgery - said in a statement, which involved a virtual simulation of the procedure conducted seven times over three days.

It said that the robotic heart surgery represents a “significant shift in heart transplant surgery” because of the minimally invasive approach, which significantly reduces recovery time and potential complications compared to open-heart surgeries.

Last year, KFSHRC also successfully completed the world’s first fully robotic liver transplant on a 66-year-old Saudi man grappling with non-alcoholic liver cirrhosis (NASH) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Since then, four more such transplants have taken place, all involving Saudi nationals. They are the first in a long line of patients who will benefit from robotic liver transplants in the future.