Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital announced today that its reconstructive surgery team, in collaboration with a domestic medical robotics company, has successfully performed China's first microsurgical robot-assisted perforator flap vascular anastomosis. The domestically developed "Kai Microsurgical Robot System" achieved stable suturing of 0.5mm-level ultra-micro vessels for the first time, marking China's entry into the forefront of international precision surgery at the sub-millimeter level.
Surgery in Focus: Robot "Performs Surgery" to Repair Tumor Patient's Wound
A 29-year-old female patient underwent treatment for a malignant tumor in her left elbow. After the orthopedic team completed tumor resection, Dr. Feng Shaqing from the Plastic Surgery Department utilized the Kai system to perform a free flap transplantation using an ALT perforator flap harvested from the patient's right thigh. During the critical procedure, the robot precisely anastomosed perforator arteries and veins with diameters as small as 0.5–1.2 millimeters, while maintaining dynamic tension control and recording the entire surgical trajectory. The patient recovered smoothly postoperatively, with normal blood flow in the flap, validating the safety of domestically produced robots in complex reconstructive surgery.
Technological Breakthroughs: Three Core Advantages Redefining Industry Standards
Submillimeter Precision: Breaking the limits of traditional manual operations, achieving stable suturing of 0.5-millimeter vessels (approximately one-tenth the thickness of a human hair), with error control within 0.01 millimeters;
Intelligent Collaboration: Through 3D visual navigation and tremor elimination technology, it automatically compensates for surgeon hand tremors, improving operational stability by four times compared to traditional surgery;
Data-Driven Innovation: During surgery, it simultaneously collects 12 operational parameters (such as suture tension and trajectory duration), generating over 2,000 data sets, providing localized samples for AI surgical training.
Industry Impact: Breaking international monopolies and ushering in a new era of "precision surgery"
As China's first microsurgical robot system to enter the clinical stage, Kai, developed through deep integration of medicine and engineering (a collaboration between Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital and Angtai Micro-Precision Medical Technology), fills the domestic gap in sub-millimeter surgical robots. Data shows that the failure rate for traditional 0.5-millimeter vascular anastomosis exceeds 20%, while the success rate with robotic assistance exceeds 90%. This technology can be applied not only to post-tumor resection repair and finger reimplantation but also holds promise for developing remote surgery modules to provide top-tier medical resources to patients with complex injuries in remote areas.