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Computer Motion, Inc. (Nasdaq:RBOT) has completed the world's first closed-chest beating heart cardiac hybrid revascularization procedure at London Health Sciences Centre (London, Ontario).
In the two-step procedure, Douglas Boyd, MD, director of the Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery Program at London Health Sciences Centre, first used Computer Motion's ZEUS Robotic Surgical System to perform an endoscopic, single-vessel heart bypass surgery on a 55 year-old male patient's left anterior descending artery. The bypass was performed through four tiny ports, through which 3mm to 5mm surgical instruments were inserted, while the heart continued to beat. In the second step, William Kostuk, MD, professor of cardiology at the University of Western Ontario, completed an angioplasty revascularization on the patient's second occluded coronary vessel.
The cardiac hybrid revascularization procedure is an integrated approach for treating multi-vessel coronary artery disease. Minimally invasive cardiac surgery is first used to treat the principal coronary artery, while interventional therapies, such as balloon angioplasty and coronary stenting, are then used to treat other blocked vessels. This historic procedure at London Health Sciences Centre added a new dimension to the minimally invasive approach by completing the endoscopic bypass on a beating heart, thereby avoiding the heart-lung machine to administer cardiopulmonary bypass. Studies show that eliminating CPB may...