Surgery from anywhere in the country and on patients anywhere in the country could soon be a reality. SS Innovations (SSI), the developer of India’s first indigenous surgical robotic system and technologies, successfully conducted the first of its kind human telesurgery trial with the doctor and patient located five kilometres apart from each other. The surgery was carried out using Airtel’s fiberoptic network.
Sudhir Srivastava, one of the country’s leading cardiac surgeons, and chairman and CEO of SSI, said the first human live surgery was performed just like the doctor was operating the patient in the same room with no delay in transmission or latency. It was a one-hour gallbladder removal (cholecystectomy) surgery with the patient at the World Laparoscopy Hospital and the surgeon sitting in the Surgeon Command Centre in the SSI headquarters in Gurugram. It was done using the SSi Mantra surgical robotic system.
The company launched the new generation advanced slim SSi Mantra 3 surgical robotic system to mark this breakthrough in the surgical landscape of the country.
Surgical robots are minimally invasive surgery and enable precise manipulation of surgical instruments within constrained operation spaces, surpassing human capabilities, reducing patient trauma, shorter recovery times and better patient outcomes.
SSi Mantra 3 allows for smaller fingertip-sized incisions, leading to less pain, minimal blood loss, reduced scarring, faster recovery, and shorter hospital stays. This advanced cost-effective surgical robotic system would make advanced robotic surgery more accessible to hospitals, doctors and the ultimate beneficiary, patients beyond the top cities.
The SSi Mantra is the first surgical robotic system made in India and is the only system in the world with broad-spectrum surgical applications and was cost-effective. The company sold 50 systems, including 28 systems in the first five months of 2024. Three hundred surgeons had carried out 1,400 different types of surgeries, including urology, cardiology, thoracic, gynaecology and general surgery without any injury or morbidity, Dr Srivastava said. Last month, SSI completed 100 robotic cardiac surgery cases in just over a year, utilising the SSi Mantra.
Healthcare in the country would be moving to tele proctoring, tele surgery, tele diagnosis and tele therapy, Dr Srivastava said. Around 90% of the robotic surgeries are carried out in the US, Europe and Japan while the bulk of the remaining seven billion population did not have access to robotic surgery because of the cost and steep learning curve, he said. India had only 230 robotic surgery systems, which was worked out to 0.07 per million, and the country needed to improve access to better healthcare. SS Innovations has developed affordable robotics, which have advanced features, not seen anywhere in the world, he said.
The company had developed the SSi Mantra 3 in five months, which would have taken five to seven years in the other global markets. Dr Fredric Moll, the father of surgical robotics and founder of Intuitive Surgical (DaVinci), speaking at the SSi Mantra 3 launch said the price at which these systems were available would catalyze the adoption and access to surgical robotics around the world and the technology was set for a dramatic growth. Dr Moll has joined the SS Innovations board and will become vice chairman of the company.
With tele-proctoring/tele-mentoring capabilities, the SSi Mantra has a built-in live streaming platform, which provides remote proctoring, for efficient and cost-effective teaching and training capabilities.
The country has 70,000 hospitals but only about 0.1% of global robotic surgical procedures. Apart from the Indian market, the company was looking at underserved markets in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Central and South America.
SS Innovations has commenced the regulatory approval process in the United States and the European Union and anticipates receiving US FDA approval to market and CE Mark approval in 2025.
Surgeries conducted utilising robotic systems are expected to grow globally by approximately 400%, from 1.6 million surgeries in 2020 to 6.2 million surgeries by 203
