Robotic surgery takes centre stage
WATERFALL CITY - A highly-sophisticated robotic-assisted surgery for the treatment of prostate cancer is rapidly catching on in South Africa, as it has done in Europe and the United States.
Netcare introduced da Vinci Si robotic technology at Netcare Waterfall City Hospital in Midrand and Netcare Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital in Cape Town last year.
According to Netcare Waterfall City Hospital urologist, Dr Marius Conradie the procedure is a new treatment of choice for prostate cancer in South Africa. “Approximately 80 percent of prostatectomies [surgical removal of all or part of the prostate gland] being undertaken in countries such as the United States are now being performed using robotic technology,” said Conradie.
He added that it was not surprising that the technology was being adopted so readily, because it offered many advantages over traditional forms of open surgery. The procedure requires smaller incisions than open surgery, and surgeons achieve greatly improved outcomes with less risk of infection and other complications. There is reduced blood loss and patients experience less post-operative pain.
Jacques du Plessis, managing director of the Netcare hospital division said no fewer than 200 prostatectomies have been successfully performed using the system in South Africa, which was designed to assist surgeons in performing highly-intricate procedures with much greater accuracy.
“We expected that, at the most, 150 surgeries would have been done using da Vinci technology by this time,” said Du Plessis.
“The higher number of procedures completed indicates that South African men with prostate cancer are becoming more aware of the benefits of this cutting edge technology.”
According to Netcare statistics, the average patient stay in hospital is being reduced by more than half through the use of the technology when compared with open surgery, from seven hospital days to just three days. In other words, men are able to get back on their feet considerably sooner than they would otherwise have been able to after open surgery.
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