An eight-centimeter incision at the bottom of the sternum and just above the diaphragm has allowed the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona to perform a fully robotic lung transplant. The surgery was carried out on February 28 and the patient was discharged more than a week ago, so the case has been made public today.
The center also performed in 1992 the first successful bilateral lung transplant in Spain and in 1998, the first child transplant of its kind. It is by far the hospital that performs the most lung transplants per year (about 100)