Zurich researchers operate on pig 9,300 kilometres away

Zurich researchers operate on pig 9300 kilometers away Keystone-SDA

Swiss researchers have operated on a pig in Hong Kong from their laboratory in Zurich.

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It is the first time that a magnetic stomach tube developed for this purpose has been used remotely on a living animal, the federal technology institute ETH Zurich announced on Monday.

The researchers hope that this will improve surgical care in remote areas where there is a lack of specialist knowledge. The procedure was carried out in May as part of a joint study by ETH Zurich and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Researchers reported their experiment in the journal Advanced Intelligent Systems. According to the university, ETH doctoral student Alexandre Mesot controlled the feeding tube with the joystick of a Playstation controller. He watched on a screen as the probe moved through the stomach of the anaesthetized pig, which was lying around 9,300 kilometres away in an operating theatre.

Magnetic stomach tube

In addition to a good Internet connection, this was made possible by a gastric probe developed at ETH Zurich. The head of the endoscope, as gastric tubes are known in technical jargon, consists of a magnet. It is controlled by a magnetic field.

It is smaller than conventional endoscopes, according to the university. It can therefore be inserted through the nose instead of the mouth, as was previously the case. This is less stressful and patients do not have to be put under general anesthesia.

The device has not yet been tested on humans, but researchers have high hopes for their feeding tube.

“There is a lot of potential in this technology. I’m thinking of minimally invasive procedures in the gastrointestinal tract, such as cancer screening,” Professor Bradley Nelson, who was responsible for the trial, was quoted as saying in the press release.

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

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