Surgeons in Houston successfully completed the first fully robotic heart transplant in the U.S. on a 45-year-old man. Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center said doctors performed the entire procedure without opening the patient’s chest.
According to a Baylor press release dated Tuesday, June 17, surgeons used a robot to make precision incisions into the abdomen. Usually in heart transplants, doctors saw open the chest and fracture the chest bone. The Baylor team removed the man’s diseased heart and implanted a new heart through an opening above the navel, avoiding any chest incision.
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Less invasive procedure
Hospital officials said the new procedure does less damage to the body and reduces the risk of excessive bleeding from cutting the breastbone. Those reduced risks mean the need for blood transfusions is less likely, which minimizes the risk of the new heart being rejected by the recipient.
“Opening the chest and spreading the breastbone can affect wound healing and delay rehabilitation and prolong the patient’s recovery, especially in heart transplant patients who take immunosuppressants,” lead surgeon Dr. Kenneth Liao said. “With the robotic approach, we preserve the integrity of the chest wall, which reduces the risk of infection and helps with early mobility, respiratory function and overall recovery.”
The patient
The patient had been in the hospital since November 2024 with advanced heart failure. He received the new heart in early March. After surgery, he spent a month in the hospital before being sent home, free of complications. Newsweek reports the patient, identified as Tony Rosales Ibarra, was cleared to resume exercise and driving earlier in June 2025.
How the robotic arm is used
The procedure used a robotic arm equipped with surgical tools and a 3D camera controlled by a surgeon with a joystick and foot pedals. The surgery allows doctors to operate on the patient without the need for any physical contact.
“This transplant shows what is possible when innovation and surgical experience come together to improve patient care,” Laio said. “Our goal is to offer patients the safest, most effective and least invasive procedures, and robotic technology allows us to do that in extraordinary ways.”
The hospital has not indicated when the procedure will be rolled out to more patients or what the potential costs will be.
The communications manager for the hospital, Porfirio Villarreal, told Newsweek that St. Luke’s Medical Center “expects to repeat the procedure with other patients when appropriate.”
Procedure first performed in Saudi Arabia
The landmark procedure in the U.S. comes after surgeons at a hospital in Saudi Arabia performed the world’s first fully robotic heart transplant on a 16-year-old patient with advanced heart failure in 2024.
Critics of use of robotics in surgery
There are some critics of robotic surgeries. Professor T.A. Rockall, a consultant general surgeon, published a paper in the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 2024 that called claims that robotic surgeries are more efficient “ill-informed rhetoric.”
“Cash-strapped hospitals are spending large amounts of money on robotic technology that could clearly be better spent elsewhere,” Rockall wrote.
Expected rise in use
Medical academics predict fully robotic surgeries will become much more common, noting the practice’s advantages over traditional procedures when it comes to patient recovery and fewer complications.
The Jupiter Medical Center in Florida has used robotic surgeries since 2010 and this year completed its 10,000th operation using the method.
