A Venezuelan patient was operated on in Spain in the world's first robotic surgery to remove an aggressive tumor at the end of the trachea through a single incision and without intubation. The procedure was performed at the Ruber International hospital in Madrid. The patient, 66-year-old Pavler Carpio, traveled from Venezuela with the help of the González Rivas Foundation. The surgery was led by thoracic surgeon Diego González Rivas, who explained that the tumor was in the worst possible location—the carina, where the trachea bifurcates into the bronchi. Despite being a high-risk surgery with potential complications, the operation was successful. The team of eight specialists, including three surgeons, two anesthesiologists, and three nurses, performed the 5.5-hour procedure. The Da Vinci robot was used through a single 4-centimeter incision in the chest, and the patient breathed on his own throughout the operation. Without this intervention, the patient would have died suddenly within months. The daughter of the patient contacted Dr. González Rivas via Instagram, and the entire operation was planned in just eight days.
