In a post on the social media site, Herrell reported that the first six patients underwent bladder lesion excision for 11 lesions in total. All cases, conducted on May 12 and 13, proved successful. Dr. Jeremy Teoh of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) led the cases as part of the pilot phase of the VIABLE trial.
According to Herrell, who founded the company, too, Teoh is a “world-renowned surgeon and research leader in bladder cancer.” He pioneered the “en-bloc” lesion removal technique for bladder cancer lesions as well, the CEO says.
Nashville, Tennessee-based Virtuoso designed its system with two robotically controlled, needle-sized manipulators working from the tip of a rigid endoscope. That endoscope comes in at less than half the diameter of a U.S. dime. The scope is smaller than current endoscope hardware, the company says, and the manipulators are 1mm in diameter. It also features a camera, tissue grasper, retractor, tissue snare, laser aiming manipulator and electrosurgical tools.
For more on the wide world of surgical robotics, see our special report on the space.
By initially having human surgeons teleoperate the system, the robot can “shadow” the human’s decision-making. This allows it to learn more generalized skills. Virtuoso Surgical believes it has an ideal platform to develop autonomous surgery facilitated by AI, machine-learning and computer vision.
The company has plans underway to democratize and improve the en-bloc approach to bladder lesion excision surgery, Herrell says.
“Virtuoso looks forward to continuing to advance this surgical technique and our revolutionary technology in collaboration with Dr. Teoh and the exceptional teams at CUHK,” Herrell said. “The company plans to submit an IDE application to the FDA for the study of the device’s use in the U.S.”
