Urologists at St. Marina Hospital Perform Unique for Bulgaria Dual Robot-assisted Surgery

The urological team at St. Marina Hospital in Pleven performed a unique for the country dual robot-assisted surgery on a 57-year-old patient with two malignancies - prostate cancer and left kidney tumor, said the press office of theĀ hospital.
The patient was admitted to the hospital with a suspected tumor in the left kidney. A prostate biopsy and a PET/CT scan detected prostate cancer and a tumour in the lower pole of the left kidney measuring 30 mm. Urologists Assoc. Prof. Dr.Nikolay Kolev and Dr. Boyan Atanasov, both with years of experience in minimally invasive surgery, decided to perform both surgeries simultaneously with the latest generation of Da Vinci Xi robotic system: radical prostatectomy (removal of the entire prostate) with bilateral lymph node dissection and partial nephrectomy (removal of the tumour-affected part of the kidney).
According to the urologists who performed the intervention, this could not have been done with conventional surgery because of the need for two large incisions, long operating time and surgery-induced trauma. All these factors would inevitably result in slower patient recovery and the risk of complications. The urologists commented on the advantages of robotic surgery, saying: "The surgery was performed in four hours, with minimal blood loss (150 ml) and warm ischemia time of 13 min. using 6 ports. The next day the patient was in excellent condition, up and moving around."

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