The Southern Cross Cable has been used to link surgeons performing a Trans-Tasman kidney operation, which Doctors say could be a world first.
The operation was performed in a surgical bus in the car park of New Zealand’s Christchurch Hospital in May and was beamed live across the Tasman Sea via the Southern Cross Cable Network to the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane in Australia.
Using advanced technology, which was not available within the main hospital buildings surgeons carried out the operation guided by an expert surgeon sitting thousands of kilometres away who was able to give them advice and supervise the operation via a live video link.
The surgery, a complex keyhole kidney donor operation was being performed for the first time by the two surgeons involved without any attending surgeon on-hand.
However, the technology used allowed urological surgeon Dr David Nicol, from Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital, to talk to his New Zealand counterparts through the procedure in real time, meaning that he didn’t need to travel to New Zealand to supervise the procedure.
"The plan before this technology became available would have been for someone such as myself to go and be in the theatre at the same time that they were performing the procedure and supervise," Dr Nicol said.
Using advanced microwave and fibre-optic technology meant that Dr Nicol could view the operation in intricate detail, experiencing 10 times the clarity of normal video-conferencing.
It took about two hours to remove the kidney which was then transplanted into a woman waiting in a Christchurch hospital operating theatre.
Dr Nicol said it was the first time such an operation had taken place across an international border in a manner which could become common-place and would have important ramifications for the future.
"This will be an advantage to surgeons in this part of the world, where we are remote from other western countries, particularly Europe and America," he added.
|
