'Win-win' as robotic help results in double op joy

A CANCER patient has become the first to undergo a robot-assisted double operation at Addenbrooke's Hospital, in Cambridge.

- By CHARLOTTE PAGE

Philip Greene, from Ipswich, said he could not believe how smoothly his surgery had gone, how little pain he was in afterwards, and that he was allowed home just three days later.

The 69-year-old said: "I was blown away by how fast it was all over."

Mr Greene, a former field service engineer, was the first Addenbrooke's patient to have a robot-assisted joint bowel and liver operation following colon cancer which spread to his liver.

He said: "One minute the anaesthetist was explaining I'd soon drift off, and the next I was waking up in recovery and looking at a chap in the bed opposite.

"It was like a win-win. The surgeons now know they can do the procedure, and I am out of hospital and doing well. I can see how this will benefit other people in the future, and how it could be applied to other kinds of surgeries."

Mr Greene agreed to the operation, which involved keyhole-type rather than open surgery.