San Francisco, Sep 13 (IANS): Robotic surgeons from the US, India and Spain were named the top three winners in the KS International Robotic Surgery Innovation competition, as robotic surgery slowly becomes mainstream.

The winners were selected by an international jury form Oxford and Stanford Universities, and New-Delhi based AIIMS, from the fields of urology, gynaecology, general surgery, hepato-biliary-pancreatic surgery, colorectal, head and neck, paediatric and joint replacement surgeries.

The winning entry of Dr Jihad Kaouk, department of urology, Cleveland Clinic in Ohio was titled ‘Single Port Robot-Assisted Kidney Transplantation Extraperitoneal Approach' in the unique competition organised by Michigan-based robotic surgery evangelist Vattikuti Foundation.

Dr Kaouk and his team modified the technique of robotic kidney transplant developed at the Vattikuti Urology Institute and Medanta Medicity.

Kaouk used a da Vinci single port robot for truly minimally invasive surgery.

"The early results of patients who had undergone robotic kidney transplant through this technique could go home in only 2 days," the foundation said in a statement.

For ‘Robotic Infraclavicular Approach for Minimally Invasive Neck Dissection,' the second award went to Dr Sandeep Nayak, Director, Surgical Oncology, Fortis Cancer Institute, Bengaluru.

Dr Nayak innovated a robotic technique to perform very major cancer surgery of the head neck to clear the lymph nodes in the neck with quick patient recovery and minimal discomfort.

The third award went to a team of Dr Alberto Piana, Dr Paolo Verri, and Dr Alberto Breda of Oncology Urology and Kidney Transplant Surgery, Fundacio Puigvert, Barcelona, Spain for their entry of ‘3D Augmented Reality Guided Robotic Assisted Kidney Transplantation'.

The KS National Robotic Surgery Video' competition is being organised in India since 2015 by Vattikuti Foundation. This year, it went international for the first time.

"As surgeons continue to innovate newer procedures in robotic surgery, the Vattikuti Foundation will continue to invest and make it accessible to other surgeons," said Raj Vattikuti, president of Vattikuti Foundation.