IRCCS Candiolo’s robotic surgery is enriched with a new state-of-the-art element. It is the da Vinci SP (Single Port) robot, introduced in Europe earlier this year and adopted first in Piedmont by our institute: the new robotic system has a single arm that makes a single incision (no larger than a coin) sufficient to perform the same surgery that with other techniques requires four incisions. Through a single cannula, the three multi-nodal articulated instruments and the robot’s 3D HD camera can be directed to the anatomical target of surgery: the surgeon controls the positioning and movement of the robotic arm from a console.

More than 70 percent of the surgeries performed with the da Vinci SP involve urological surgery, particularly the treatment of prostate and kidney cancer. At the Candiolo IRCCS, the first two surgeries with this latest-generation robot were performed by the Urology team led by Professor Francesco Porpiglia, full professor of Urology in the Department of Oncology at the University of Turin’s Orbassano branch: “In addition to offering increasingly precise and personalized surgery, we are thus guaranteeing patients a much faster postoperative recovery that in the very near future will allow their discharge after only one or two nights of hospitalization.” Adds Professor Porpiglia, “This is not a suitable tool for all patients, but of the approximately 500 robotic surgeries planned at Candiolo for 2024, we will perform more than 100 with this robotic system.”

The new da Vinci SP was purchased with the contribution of the Fondazione Piemontese per la Ricerca sul Cancro Onlus, which, through the words of its president, Allegra Agnelli, emphasizes, “We are proud to have made available to the Candiolo IRCCS Institute, thanks to the support and trust of our supporters, the latest generation da Vinci Single Port robot that will allow us to treat more and more people and to do it better and better.”