US doctors perform op using video and a robot

Doctors in the US successfully removed a patient's gall bladder 14,000km away in France with a remote robot arm, completing the first major trans-Atlantic telesurgical operation.

Surgeons in New York were linked up to another surgical team in France by a video and high-speed fibre-optic line giving them full remote control of a surgical robot arm.

Professor Jacques Marescaux, of the Louis Pasteur University of Strasbourg, who led the team said the successful operation lays the foundation for future operations being carried out for patients anywhere in the world.

There was a slight time lag between the surgeon's movements and the return video image displayed on his monitor of 155 milliseconds, inside the estimated safe lag-time of 330 milliseconds.

The operation, carried out on 7 September, was all over within half an hour and the patient - a 68-year-old woman - was discharged two days later.