LUANDA: A cancer patient in Angola was recovering on Thursday after undergoing the first robotic surgery on the continent conducted remotely by a surgeon in the United States, according to the hospitals involved.

The prostatectomy — partial or complete removal of the prostate — on June 14 was also the first in the world to be done over such a distance, they said. It was “successfully performed” by Vipul Patel, medical director at the Global Robotics Institute, part of AdventHealth hospital in Celebration, Florida.

“The procedure spanned nearly 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometres), making it the longest distance telesurgery ever completed,” AdventHealth said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Complexo Hospitalar Cardeal Dom Alexandre do Nascimento (CHDC) in Angola’s capital Luanda said it was “the first teleassisted surgery performed in Angola and on the African continent”.

A multidisciplinary team of surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses, engineers and a member of Patel’s team was present in the operating bloc, the CHDC said. The surgery “went well,” the hospital’s director, Carlos Alberto Masseca, said. Three days after the procedure, the pati­ent, Fernando da Silva, 67, went home to recover.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2025