Join Consultant Urological Surgeon, Mr Ben Challacombe live from Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospital, London where he will be leading a robotic partial nephrectomy on one of the Trust’s patients.

Robotic partial kidney removal has several benefits for patients over both standard keyhole and open surgery, including less time in hospital, faster recovery times and less pain. The surgeon will use the DaVinci robot to make smaller incisions to remove the part of the kidney, avoiding larger cuts and more scarring. When Surgeons use the robots, they effectively have their hands inside the patient without open surgery.

During a robotic procedure, surgeons control the robot’s ‘arms’ from a console as they look down small telescopes on the end of each arm to see inside the four keyhole incisions. The machine gives them a 3D HD view while they operate, eliminates tremor and provides an increased range of movement, which leads to more precision and quicker stitching.

Mr Challacombe said: “We can perform the key part of the procedure in less time using the robot, so this reduces the time that blood flow to the kidney is stopped while the tumour is removed. Consequently there is less damage to the kidney, keeping it functioning better after the operation, and more of the kidney can be preserved.