NYU Langone Health Performs Fully Robotic Lung Transplant

Surgeons at NYU Langone Health have performed the first “fully robotic lung transplant in the nation.” This makes NYU Langone only the third program in the world to use a robotic system in a lung transplant surgery. Their website has the release.

The surgery, led by Stephanie H. Chang, involved creating “small incisions between the ribs on the right side of the chest and then [using] the robotic system to remove the lung, prepare the surgical site for implantation, and implant the new lung.” Chang touts the approach as “overall less invasive…compared to the traditional open chest procedure.”

The NYU Langone Transplant Institute “performed 76 lung transplants in 2023 and was rated best in the nation for lung survival after transplant and getting patients off the waitlist fastest by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients.”

In 2023, “Vall d’Hebron Barcelona Hospital performed the first fully robotic lung transplant in the world. In 2022, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles performed the first-ever robot-assisted lung transplant by using the robotic system for the final implantation stage. NYU Langone is the first center in the nation to use the robotic system at every stage of lung transplantation.”