Robotic surgery – surgeons performed a small Easter miracle

Johann Spöck has endured a lot in his life. After a heart attack and heart bypass surgery, she was recently diagnosed with rectal cancer. But instead of despairing, the 81-year-old researched treatment options and came across robot-assisted surgery, as used at the Klagenfurt Clinic.

It soon became clear to Ebenthaler that he wanted to be operated on with this new method – and his decision seems to have been perfect.

Operation performed for several hours
“In an operation lasting almost four hours, the entire rectum, including all lymph nodes and part of the colon, was removed. Thanks to robot-assisted surgery, an artificial anus could be avoided,” explains Primarius Reinhard Mittermair, Head of the Department of General and Visceral Surgery, who performed the procedure last Monday with his team of surgeons led by Darko Sklepic and Markus Fellner.

Robotic arms controlled via the control panel
While using the Da Vinci robot, the surgeon sits at a control console in the operating room and operates the instruments from there (we reported). “The surgical field is rendered three-dimensionally and magnified tenfold, which means that the view of tissue structures is significantly better than any other surgical procedure. As a result, the accuracy of the cuts is many times more precise,” says Mittermair.

Johann Spöck can go home tomorrow, Easter Sunday, just six days after the operation, in good general condition, where he will celebrate Easter with his family.