Robotic pyeloplasty was performed on a child in Ukraine for the first time. Surgeons of St. Nicholas Hospital and St. Panteleimon Hospital of the First Medical Association of Lviv operated during an air alert and with light from a generator.
The little patient’s name is Marynka. She is from Vinnytsia. She is 8 years old. The girl had hydronephrosis: due to the pathological narrowing of the vessel, urine did not leave the kidney completely. Without surgical intervention, the girl could eventually lose her kidney, because the organ simply would not be able to perform its function. Marinka was born with this defect. However, all eight years she did not show herself in any way. The defect was discovered by accident – during a routine ultrasound.
The girl’s family turned to specialists in Lviv for help. In order to perform the intervention as safely and as minimally traumatic as possible, doctors decided to use the Da Vinci robotic surgeon.
The surgeons reached the abdominal cavity through three small punctures and introduced a video camera there. The collecting system of the kidney was isolated and it was seen that a part of the renal vessels was strongly pressing on the urinary tract. Then a pyeloplasty was performed – a new channel was formed in such a way that the vessels did not interfere with the urinary processes.
The surgical intervention was performed by surgeons of St. Nicholas Hospital Andriy Dvorakevich, Oleksandr Kalinchuk and urologist Dmytro Shevchuk, as well as a team of surgeons at St. Panteleimon Hospital: Artur Guraevsky, Andriy Stasyshyn and Andriy Guraevsky.
“Robotic pyeloplasty is the most modern and fastest method of hydronephrosis treatment. The Da Vinci system allows you to minimize trauma and blood loss during surgery, shorten the patient’s stay in the hospital and speed up the rehabilitation period,” the doctors emphasize.
Now the girl is feeling well. She was fitted with a stent – a cylindrical structure to expand the ureter, with which the child will walk for one month. In the future, this structure will be removed cystoscopically under short sedation.