Japan Performs First Clinical Remote Robotic Surgeries Across Two Hospitals
Many regions lack enough surgeons to offer advanced operations close to home.
Robotic systems let a surgeon work from a console instead of standing at the patient's side, raising a practical question: how far away can that console be?
Japan has moved that question out of the lab and into the operating room, with real patients.
Five Cancer Patients, Two Hospitals
Hirosaki University Hospital and Tsugaru General Hospital, both in Aomori Prefecture, have performed robotic surgery on five patients with bowel cancer since August 2026.
Hirosaki University and the Japan Surgical Society announced the results on October 14, 2026.
Each operation used hinotori, a surgical robot developed by the Japanese company Medicaroid.
One doctor operated the robot on site while a second doctor controlled the same robot from a different location.
The organizers describe these as the first clinical applications in Japan of robotic surgery performed by doctors at different locations.
All five surgeries were reported as successful.
Why Two Surgeons Share One Robot
This is a remote assistance model, not a single surgeon operating alone from far away.
Japan’s telesurgery guidelines, written by a committee of the Japan Surgical Society, apply in principle to cases where a surgeon is physically present with the patient.
Under those guidelines, full telesurgery without an on-site surgeon is not permitted.
That design turns the remote console into a teaching and support tool rather than a replacement for the local team.
An experienced surgeon at a core hospital can guide a colleague at a hospital with few specialists, in real time.
The Groundwork Behind the Cases
The same two hospitals sit about 30 km apart and were linked through commercial optical fiber lines from NTT East in an earlier pilot study.
In that 2025 study, five surgeons performed a pancreatic anastomosis, a delicate suturing step, on an artificial organ model, and four local surgeons were guided remotely.
Average communication delay was about 11 to 12 milliseconds on standard commercial lines and 2 milliseconds on the next-generation IOWN line.
The research group has previously treated delays above 100 milliseconds as the point where surgery may be affected.
The authors also listed clear limits, including dry organ models, a small number of participants, and a distance short enough to drive.
They concluded that animal studies and carefully designed clinical trials had to come before routine use.
What Comes Next
The team plans several more surgeries with the same method through March 2027 to verify safety.
After that, it intends to seek regulatory approval for the necessary equipment and national health insurance coverage.
Masaki Mori, who heads the Japan Surgical Society’s remote surgery promotion committee, said the primary goal is to eliminate regional disparities in surgical treatment.
The society hopes for a commercial rollout about two years after the announcement.
The larger aim is to spare patients the expense and inconvenience of traveling for treatment.
The distance matters less than who is on the other end of the connection.
Readers following how remote and supervised systems are developing can find the wider picture in The 2026 Surgical Technology Intelligence Report.
