Doctors at Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) in Lucknow have performed robotic liver surgery on two seven-month-old infants weighing less than six kilograms, in what the institute’s paediatric surgical department described as the first such procedures in India.
The two infants, a boy weighing around five kilograms and a girl weighing around six kilograms, had tumours involving the left lobe of the liver. Both underwent chemotherapy before the robotic procedures, according to a report by the Times of India.
The surgeries were carried out by SGPGIMS’s Department of Paediatric Surgical Super Specialties. The cases involved operating on infants with limited abdominal space and delicate internal structures, making access, dissection and bleeding control particularly demanding.
“Liver surgery in infants is particularly challenging because of the limited abdominal working space, delicate anatomy and small-calibre blood vessels and bile ducts,” Basant Kumar, head of the department, was quoted as saying.
Kumar said robotic surgery required precise dissection and bleeding control while preserving adequate liver function. He added that the procedures demonstrated the feasibility of using robotic technology for complex hepatobiliary surgery in very young and low-weight children.
The procedures also required coordination across several specialist departments, including paediatric anaesthesia, paediatric gastroenterology and radiodiagnosis. The institute credited these teams for supporting the surgeries and the care surrounding them.
According to Kumar, the two operations were, to the best of the department’s knowledge, the first robotic liver procedures performed on infants in India. The report did not provide details of the infants’ post-operative condition, the duration of their hospital stay, the robotic system used or the cost of the treatment.
The cases highlight the specialised infrastructure required for advanced paediatric surgery. Robotic procedures in very young children depend not only on the surgical platform but also on appropriately trained surgeons, paediatric anaesthesia teams, imaging support, intensive monitoring and the ability to manage small blood vessels and bile ducts.
SGPGIMS is a tertiary medical institution that brings together specialised clinical departments and diagnostic services. In these cases, the reported involvement of multiple departments was central to delivering the treatment, rather than the robotic equipment functioning as a standalone intervention.
The procedures were performed after chemotherapy, indicating that treatment involved more than the surgical intervention itself. However, the supplied report does not specify the tumour types, chemotherapy protocols, surgical duration or long-term outcomes.
The department’s next stage will be to monitor the infants after surgery. SGPGIMS has not, in the supplied report, announced whether it plans to publish a formal clinical series or provide further outcome data from the two procedures.
