St George's Hospital Tooting first to perform pioneering robotic cancer-removing technique

Using "Firefly" technology, the da Vinci surgical robots can accurately remove cancerous tumours from the kidney in a procedure known as immunofluorescence assisted partial nephrectomy.

This technique is a form of minimally-invasive surgery which uses green dye to determine the blood supply to a kidney tumour, allowing surgeons to remove the tumour.

Knowing the exact pattern of blood supply to the tumour enables surgeons to spare as much kidney function as possible whilst removing the tumour.

Dye injected into the patient shows up under the da Vinci robot’s specialised camera as bright green light, which gives the technology its ‘FireFly’ name.

The procedure was performed by Professor Alex Mottrie, a worldwide expert on robotic partial nephrectomy surgery from Belgium.

Chris Anderson, consultant urologist at St George’s Healthcare, said: "Partial nephrectomy is a complex operation and requires excision of the tumour and reconstruction of the remaining healthy kidney.

"It is an excellent innovation and we are fortunate to have been part of the pioneering process of this technique in the UK.”