First-of-a-kind remote thrombectomy using Sentante robotics performed at the University of Dundee in the UK, and operated by surgeons at Baptist Health, Jacksonville, Florida and Scotland; promises major benefits for patients and medical workers
- Operators from Dundee, Scotland and Jacksonville, Florida, remotely removed blood clots from the brain (thrombectomy) – a procedure that restores blood flow in the brain to stroke patients.
- Remote control was achieved using Sentante’s haptic, device-agnostic endovascular robotics operated from two remote locations: University of Dundee Surgical Skills Centre at Ninewells Hospital and Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Florida across a digital network to a specialist imaging lab at the University of Dundee, Scotland
- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Device Designation for the Sentante Stroke System. This technology aims to bring gold-standard, time-critical stroke care to patients without relocating the patient or the specialist, and tackle unnecessary death and disability caused by lack of access to surgeons in remote or under-served areas.
- CDC data show that approximately 50% of the US population does not have timely access to certified 24/7 mechanical thrombectomy-capable centers
Sentante, a med-tech robotics company, has successfully demonstrated a first-of-a-kind remote stroke procedure in Scotland on the 2nd October -performed by specialist surgeons guiding the interventions from different hospitals in Florida, USA and Dundee, Scotland.
Full end-to-end thrombectomies were performed on perfused non-living subjects with procedure-authentic pathology in the Image Guided Therapy Research Facility (IGTRF) at the University of Dundee. Its success proves the potential of Sentante’s technology to:
- save the lives and prognoses of patients suffering stroke episodes in remote settings; only 212 patients received a Thrombectomy across Scotland in 2024, representing only 2.2% of the total number of people who had an ischemic stroke.
- improve critical care and outcomes for stroke patients using robotic accuracy and precision;
- create a fully digital process with rich data learning to inform the next generation of specialists and endovascular robotics
“For an ischaemic stroke, the difference between walking out of hospital and a lifetime of disability can be just two to three hours,” said Edvardas Satkauskas, co-founder and CEO of Sentante. “Today, patients are often transported long distances to reach one of a limited number of thrombectomy centres. With Sentante, the specialist comes to the patient over a secure network, and performs the entire procedure remotely—with the same tactile feel and control they have at the bedside.”
Two distinguished operators performed remote stroke interventions. World-renowned endovascular neurosurgeon Ricardo Hanel, MD, PhD, co-medical director of the Stroke & Cerebrovascular Center performed the transatlantic procedure, operating from Baptist Health hospital in Jacksonville on a unique, perfused human cadaver model located at University of Dundee in Scotland. Professor Iris Grunwald, MD, PhD, interventional neuroradiologist, also performed a remote stroke thrombectomy in the same location from a remote hospital in Dundee. She is a global leader in interventional stroke treatment training, and pioneered the use of AI in diagnostic stroke imaging.
“We were honored to be a test site for this groundbreaking use of remote robotic technology,” said Michael A. Mayo, DHA, FACHE, president and CEO of Baptist Health. “Dr. Hanel and the team here at Baptist Health provide world-class neurosurgical interventions each day, and the potential for these life-saving procedures to be delivered in a timely manner can bring new sources of hope and healing to a countless number of patients.”
The University of Dundee is the official global training centre of the World Federation for Interventional Stroke Treatment (WIST), housing a unique surgical environment with human models for research and device testing under authentic conditions – before moving into patient trials.
The procedure also evaluated network performance and latency over the transatlantic link, with Sentante working together with Mischa Dohler, VP of Emerging Technologies at Ericsson, in establishing multi-path
connectivity to maintain a stable, secure connection for mission-critical use. Sentante, a member of the NVIDIA Inception program for startups, integrated the NVIDIA Jetson AGX platform into the latest generation of the endovascular robot. Sentante was also among the first to start developing on NVIDIA Isaac for Healthcare, a development platform that accelerates the creation of AI-powered medical robots. Isaac for Healthcare provides ready-to-use workflows, software, and tools that enable developers to design, simulate, train, and deploy intelligent robotic applications.
The need gap: Endovascular interventions represent critical and highly time-sensitive care. Heart attack is the leading cause of death worldwide, and stroke is on the rise: with some 15 million strokes occurring globally each year, it is the second leading cause of both death and disability. Around half suffering stroke die; and around half who survive become disabled, with significant social and economic impact, the latter estimated at US$890 billion. With outcomes acutely linked to prompt intervention post-event, these are growing fastest in low- and middle-income countries, where effective prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of stroke is more challenging. In 2016 there were approximately 1.3 million large vessel occlusion strokes globally, but fewer than 100,000 mechanical thrombectomies were performed—meaning less than 1% of those potentially eligible received this life- and brain-saving treatment. There is therefore a large gap between treatment eligibility and access to specialists and settings able to perform it. Sentante represents a way to close this gap.
True-to-life interface: Sentante is a haptic endovascular robotic platform using standard catheterisation laboratory (cath-lab) equipment—guidewires and catheters—connected to a device equipped with a high-resolution sensory system that captures the specialist’s hand movements. These manipulations are replicated in real time by a robot at the patient’s bedside, whether metres or thousands of miles away. Unlike joystick-controlled surgical robots, Sentante delivers authentic force feedback directly to the surgeon’s fingertips—recreating the tactile experience of manual surgery.
Work environment: Sentante’s teleoperated robotic system allows surgeons to perform life-saving interventions while seated at high-resolution screens displaying X-ray imagery. This frees them from radiation exposure and the physical strain of standing for prolonged periods. This seamless cath-lab integration is beneficial to both physicians and patients.
“Sentante is a tool that changes the work environment for cath-lab and patients, dramatically. This is about access and consistency,” added Satkauskas. “Access, because patients in remote or non-specialist hospitals can receive the gold-standard treatment without delay. Consistency, because robotics brings precision, stability and rich digital data that can support training and, over time, increasing levels of assistance.”
October’s demonstration follows prior remote work by the team at continental distances. Sentante has also completed a clinical trial in peripheral vascular interventions using the same core platform operated from a control room adjacent to the theatre.
What’s next: Sentante’s system is currently advancing through regulatory pathways for peripheral vascular interventions, to address the challenges of occupational hazards, growing workloads, staffing shortages and quality of care. It is planned to enter the market in 2026. Stroke thrombectomy is an extension of this and will proceed through a parallel regulatory pathway with the goal of improving patient access to timely stroke treatment.
“Remote stroke treatment is one of the strongest real-world cases in medical robotics,” said Satkauskas. “You need precision, stability, safety and teleoperation all at once. Our platform was built from day one to deliver exactly that.”
Dundee’s world-leading capabilities:
The world-first remote stroke thrombectomy was made possible due to the University of Dundee’s unique position as a global leader in interventional stroke research and training. Ranked among the UK’s top institutions for medicine and dentistry, Dundee serves as the official global training centre for the World Federation for Interventional Stroke Treatment (WIST), which has led to the establishment of 11 thrombectomy centres internationally.
Its pioneering development of perfused human cadavers (Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification) — which replicate lifelike surgical conditions unlike anywhere else in the world — has enabled doctors from across the globe to train in Endovascular Stroke Treatment.
Professor Iris Grunwald said: “This is undoubtedly one of the most exciting innovations in stroke intervention in the last decade. What amazed me most was how tactile the experience was. My hands felt exactly as they usually would if I had been doing a conventional thrombectomy. Sentante is at the forefront of innovation, and has created a viable solution to a major global healthcare problem. For most patients transported to a thrombectomy centre, treatment comes too late. Remote robotics has the power to decouple expertise from geography. Our demonstration shows that a specialist can perform a technically demanding neurovascular intervention from thousands of miles away, perhaps even from their home. It was an honour to perform the first remote thrombectomy in a human body and to then be part of the team that delivered the first transatlantic thrombectomy.”
Ricardo Hanel, MD, PhD, added: “Tele neurointervention will allow us to decrease the gap and further our reach to provide one of the most impactful procedures in humankind—the thrombectomy—to more people. To operate from the US to Scotland with a 120 millisecond (blink of an eye) lag is truly remarkable.”
About Sentante:
Sentante is a medical robotics company founded in 2017, building a haptic, device-agnostic endovascular platform that enables clinicians to perform complex vascular procedures remotely with full tactile feedback. Designed to integrate with existing cath-lab infrastructure, Sentante aims to expand access, improve clinician safety, and elevate procedural consistency across peripheral vascular, neurovascular and cardiovascular applications.
