Groundbreaking robotic surgery aims to preserve erections

Goodbye, flop era!

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the US, aside from skin cancer. About 13% of male Americans will get it — and treatment often comes with the risk of erectile dysfunction.

Relief is coming — the world’s first dual-robotic surgery to remove a prostate gland was performed last month in Texas. This groundbreaking approach aims to preserve the nerves that control erectile function.

“We have a magnetic technology that enables better retraction of the tissues and better visualization,” Dr. Alberto Rodriguez-Navarro, founder and CEO of Levita Magnetics, told The Post.

“In the case of the prostate, this might result in the surgeon better seeing the nerve bundles,” Rodriguez-Navarro continued. “The nerves are very important because they are related to incontinence, like urinary incontinence, and also sexual function, so preserving those nerves is critical.”

Dr. Jeffrey Cadeddu used the da Vinci single port robotic system and Levita’s MARS platform together for the first time to remove the prostate of a 67-year-old man with Stage 2 prostate cancer at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

The dual method reduces the number of incisions, leading to less pain, fewer complications, faster recovery and fewer scars.

“Technologies that are made by different companies are usually not made to work together … but we can work together, which is what was cool about it,” said Cadeddu, a urologist, professor and member of Levita’s medical advisory board.

In a robotic prostatectomy, a urologist makes five or six small incisions in the lower stomach area to insert miniature surgical tools and a camera to access and remove the prostate gland.

The da Vinci single port, launched in the US in 2018 by Intuitive Surgical, requires only one small incision because the camera and three instruments are grouped in one shaft.

The single-arm design — which Cadeddu likens to an octopus — allows for greater range of motion and minimizes collisions between instruments.

The da Vinci provides deep and narrow access to tissue, while the MARS system uses magnetic forces for precise tissue retraction and manipulation of internal organs.

An external magnet on the patient’s skin controls a magnetic grasper inside the body.

“The actual cutting out of the prostate is done by the [da Vinci] robot, but the manipulation of adjacent tissues is done by the MARS magnetic robot,” Cadeddu explained. “Marrying the two in one operation — two robots, one controlling the grasper, one controlling the scissors and the dissection by the surgeon — that’s the novelty.”

MARS, launched in 2023, has been utilized independently for weight loss surgeries, gallbladder removals and colorectal procedures.

The plan is to use the dual technology in surgeries beyond prostate removal and to expand to other locations. Rodriguez-Navarro hopes to implement the technique in New York hospitals this year.

“We’re just starting,” he said. “The idea is that we put this in the hands of all the surgeons in the US and also on a worldwide scale.”