A hospital in Spain has successfully performed the first fully robotic lung transplant through a small incision.

Albert Jauregui, the head of the Thoracic Surgery and Lung Transplant Service of Vall d’Hebron Hospital in Barcelona, shared the details of the pioneering technique on Monday in a press briefing.

Underlining that lung transplants are “aggressive” surgeries because they require an incision to be made in a large part of the chest and breaking of the ribs in order to reach the organs, he said with the new technique they were able to replace the organ from “a small incision below the sternum, without breaking the ribs.”

Jauregui said that the operation was carried out at the end of February and lasted about five hours.

He added that a similar surgery has so far only been performed at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, but robotic surgery has been only partially used there.

For his part, the patient, Xavier, 65, said that he is “delighted” with the result, because during the postoperative period “the pain level has been zero.” (PNA)