French surgeons to operate in zero gravity
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published September 26, 2006
PARIS - A team of French doctors say they will perform the world's first zero-gravity surgery Wednesday, operating on a man in an airplane as it arcs and dives in and out of weightlessness.
The experiment by the French National Center for Space Studies is an effort to develop robotic techniques for future surgeries in space, the doctors said. The surgeons will be strapped to the walls of the aircraft as they remove a cyst from a man's forearm in a three-hour operation.
The surgery will be performed aboard a modified Airbus A300 designed to perform roller coaster-like maneuvers that simulate weightlessness. It will make about 30 such parabolas during the flight.
The operation, announced Monday by chief surgeon Dominique Martin and the French space agency, is part of a project 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 and accustomed to dramatic gravitational shifts, said Frederique Albertoni, a spokeswoman for the Bordeaux hospital where Martin works. Sanchot and the six-member medical team underwent training in zero-gravity machines - much like astronauts use - to prepare for the operation.
Martin and his team became the first doctors to perform microsurgery under zero-gravity conditions earlier this year, mending the artery in a rat's tail. The doctors say their experience Wednesday could help in the development of robots to perform surgeries in space.
"There are all sorts of interesting dilemmas with surgery in space," said Dr. Joseph LoCicero, chief of thoracic surgery at Maimonides Medical Center in New York, who is not involved in the project. "Without gravity, things could float around," he said, referring to blood and surgical instruments.