King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre (KFSHRC) in Saudi Arabia has made history by performing the world’s first fully robotic heart transplant, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
The groundbreaking two-and-a-half-hour procedure was led by Saudi cardiac surgeon Dr. Feras Khaliel at KFSHRC and was performed on a 16-year-old patient suffering from stage four heart failure.
The surgery involved the implantation of a robotic heart, which supports blood circulation, without the need for a chest incision.
The hospital described the procedure as a major advancement in heart transplant surgery, noting that the minimally invasive method significantly reduces both recovery time and the risk of complications compared to traditional open-heart surgeries.
Last year, KFSHRC also achieved a world-first by completing a fully robotic liver transplant on a 66-year-old Saudi patient with non-alcoholic liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.
