Surgeons Perform Near-Weightless Surgery

A team of French doctors claim they have successfully operated on a man in near zero-gravity conditions, using an aircraft to create conditions close to weightlessness.

The five-man team and the patient were strapped down to the walls of the Airbus 300 Zero-G plane as it looped up and down in a total of 25 roller-coaster-like maneuvers, called parabolas. Each dive lasted 22 seconds. The doctors performed midair surgery inside a hygienic plastic tent, and removed a cyst from the man's arm. Specially designed instruments were fitted with magnets to attach them to the metal operating table. The operation took no more than 11 minutes, with 31 weightless sequences. The trials are part of a long-term project by the French National Center for Space Studies (Paris, France), backed by the European Space Agency, that aims to develop earth-guided surgical space robots.

The patient, Philippe Sanchot, was chosen because he is an avid bungee-jumper who is accustomed to dramatic gravitational shifts. Mr. Sanchot and the six-member medical team underwent training in zero-gravity machines--much like astronauts use--to prepare for the operation.

"We weren't trying to perform technical feats but to carry out a feasibility test,” said chief surgeon Dominique Martin of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Bordeaux (France). "All the data we collected allow us to think that operating on a human in the conditions of space would not present insurmountable problems.”

Dr. Martin and his team became the first doctors to perform microsurgery under zero-gravity conditions in 2003, when they mended the artery in a rat's tail.



Related Links:
French National Center for Space Studies
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Bordeaux