00:00In a world first, Chinese medical teams have operated remotely on a cancer patient from a different continent.
00:07The pioneering procedure involved a robot in Beijing being controlled by a specialist in Rome.
00:14Our correspondent Jen Copestake reports.
00:18This patient in Beijing is being operated on by a robot controlled from the Italian capital, Rome, over 8,000 kilometers away.
00:28The Chinese team, including a backup surgeon, watched the operation closely at the 3rd Medical Center of the People's Liberation Army General Hospital.
00:37Professor Zhang Xu guided the robotic arms remotely via surgical console to complete delicate work of removing a lesion from the patient's prostate.
00:48The two-way communication may be happening between cities on opposite sides of the world, but the robot performed the surgery as if the doctor was in the room.
00:58The delay, or latency, was only 135 milliseconds, below the 200 millisecond standard suggested by various medical studies for telesurgery.
01:08The biggest problem with remote surgery is communication and whether there is any delay.
01:12Today, there was almost no delay, the same as an on-site surgery.
01:16To me, it was really a historical experience, a historical moment.
01:22The fact that he was able to do it in Rome makes us very, very happy.
01:28After the success of the operation, the team says it will experiment with using the technology to direct surgical treatments for the military in frontline and remote environments.
01:39Jen Copestake, CGTN.
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