On the 5th of May history was made by putting technology at the service of health, namely by performing the first breast cancer surgery using 5G technology, which united Portugal and Spain.
This unprecedented surgery, with remote supervision by a second surgeon, used the advantages of augmented reality and 5G, provided in Portugal by Altice Labs technology and in Spain by Movistar.
Mixed reality glasses (Hololens that combine virtual and augmented reality) allowed surgeon Pedro Gouveia, from the Breast Unit of the Champalimaud Clinical Center, to maintain permanent direct contact in real time with the Spanish surgeon, Rogelio Andrés-Luna. The latter, in turn, had a laptop connected to the portuguese surgeon’s glasses as a working tool. The big novelty in this interconnection was the use of 5G in this international use case. The glasses were connected by Eth/USB to a smartphone, which worked as a 5G router, and Altice Labs installed, in the operating room, the solution it developed for a private network of the fifth generation of mobile networks and which allows a response in real time.
This was, as far as is known, the first surgery performed with remote support by 5G, using the speed, low latency and reliability of fifth generation mobile technology. The 900km distance between Lisbon and Zaragoza was no problem for the communication between the two surgeons and the technology used shows the potential of 5G in health-related cases.