Telecom Italia made its first 5G remote corneal surgery operation

Telecom Italia announced that its 5G network was used to enable the world’s first corneal surgery intervention. This intervention was carried out remotely.

The operation was performed at Bari’s Politecnico hospital. It saw Professor Gianni Alessio operate remotely from his room on a patient suffering from Cogan's epithelial dystrophy. This was possible thanks to the 4D Suite platform provided by iVis Technologies. Additionally, TIM’s 5G connectivity played an essential role.

To prevent the chance of line drops and other issues that could compromise the operation’s success, a super-fast TIM 5G connection was established. The actual latency that was performed within this surgery was under 50ms. This was achieved via two 5G radio modules in Prof. Alessio’s room and at the operating theatre of the ophthalmology department. Those 2 radios were directly interconnected with TIM’s core network via 10 Gbps fibre.

This allowed the iVis Remote Control Station to be connected in 5G with the iRes 2KHz laser. The surgeon guided it remotely for the purposes of the operation. Additionally, it enabled a 3D visualization of the patient’s eye. The surgery was made possible by the 4d Suite platform. This platform directs the complete cycle of screening, diagnosis, therapy, and follow-up for corneal illnesses via remote control.

Professor Gianni Alessio said in  the press conference.

“Performing the surgery with a remote control, through fully automated processes, opens new frontiers for the eye surgeon, allowing him to operate on complex corneal diseases remotely, safely, wherever the operating room is located.”

This remains a great achievement for Italian healthcare and ophthalmology, thanks to the combination of scientific knowledge and technological innovations that in recent years have affected all branches of the life science sector.