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For around 100 days now, children have also been undergoing surgery at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg with the help of a robotic assistance system / Surgical robots enable highly precise and gentle procedures

Many children are fascinated by robots: for around 100 days, some young patients at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg have even been operated on with the help of a robot. Like adults, they benefit from the high precision, minimal bleeding and usually rapid recovery after a robot-assisted operation. The types of surgery range from operations on the gallbladder to the removal of lymphatic tissue and tumor operations. The youngest child operated on in this way was three years old.

"Helping children with new surgical techniques is particularly rewarding. Now we can treat even the very youngest children with high precision and gently with the help of robotic surgery," says Prof. Dr. Stefan Fichtner-Feigl, Medical Director of the Department of General and Visceral Surgery at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg. "Robotic operations on children are a particular challenge because there is significantly less space in the abdomen than in adults," says Fichtner-Feigl, who controls the robot himself during the children's operations. "Very close coordination between robotically experienced surgeons and qualified pediatric surgeons is crucial. We plan the operations as a team of pediatric surgeons and perform them with physicians who have been specially trained on the robot," explains Dr. Susanne Lagrèze, Acting Head of the Pediatric Surgery Section at the Department of General and Visceral Surgery at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg.

Patient example

Three-year-old Adam* was one of the first to benefit from the surgical method in Freiburg. The boy's illness caused the family a great deal of stress, with weekly high fever attacks, meningitis and swelling of the lymph nodes.

The medical team at the Center for Pediatrics urgently needed tissue from the lymph nodes in the boy's abdomen in order to make a diagnosis. The boy's symptoms were suspicious of a malignant disease. "As soon as such a suspicion arises, the patient's environment is extremely worried and unsettled. In addition, the diagnosis must be made quickly in order to initiate the right treatment," explains Lagrèze.

The robotically performed operation allowed lymph node tissue to be harvested in a very gentle way. Fortunately, it was possible to rule out a tumor and help with medication. The boy recovered quickly and well from the procedure. "This gentle surgical technique is particularly beneficial for weakened patients and especially for children and their families," says Lagrèze.

*Name changed