For the minimally-invasive procedure, surgeons used a robotic system to make a small incision between the patient’s right ribs to remove the lung, enabling the removal of the lung. The robot was then used to prepare the surgical site for implantation and place the donor lung. The same technique was used to transplant the left lung.
Stephanie Chang, MD, associate professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and surgical director for NYU Langone’s lung transplant program, led the historic procedure.
“This approach to lung transplantation requires smaller incisions for the patient and is an overall less invasive approach compared to the traditional open chest procedure,” she said in a Sept. 10 news release. “The goal is to reduce pain, improve recovery time, and provide a better hospital experience for our patients.”
NYU Langone is only the third health system in the world to use a surgical robot in a lung transplant surgery. Vall d’Hebron Barcelona Hospital performed the first fully robotic transplant in 2023, and Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Medical Center performed the nation’s first robot-assisted transplant a year prior.
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