SNUBH becomes 1st state-run hospital in Korea to perform 20,000 robotic surgeries

Seoul National University Bundang Hospital (SNUBH) announced that it became the first national university hospital in Korea to perform 20,000 robotic surgeries as of late last year. To celebrate the milestone, a symposium was held last Friday in the hospital’s grand auditorium.

SNUBH pioneered da Vinci robotic surgery in 2007 and has since expanded its robotic surgery offerings to fields such as urology, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, otolaryngology, cardiovascular and thoracic surgery, and plastic surgery. The hospital reached 10,000 robotic surgeries in 2020 and has since grown to perform more than 2,500 surgeries annually, surpassing 20,000 cases in December 2024.

At the symposium, SNUBH President & CEO Song Jung-han, Chief of Surgery Hwang Jung-won, and Director of the Center for Robotic Surgery Choi June-young, along with other key stakeholders, shared achievements and future directions in robotic surgery across various fields, including urology, surgery and thoracic surgery, and gynecology and ENT.

Robotic surgery utilizes high-resolution cameras for 3D stereoscopic images that can be magnified over 10 times to identify lesions accurately. A robotic arm aids in performing precise maneuvers, allowing for delicate surgeries with minimal incisions and blood loss. This technique offers advantages such as faster recovery and fewer complications, especially in cancer surgery.

In 2023, SNUBH’s Urology Department achieved 10,000 robotic surgeries as a stand-alone department. Over 99 percent of prostate cancer surgeries are performed using robotic surgery-oriented minimally invasive methods. Robotic partial nephrectomy, which removes part of the kidney, has a five-year cancer survival rate of 94 percent even for stage 3 kidney cancer.

In the field of thyroid cancer, SNUBH performed the “world’s first” Bilateral Axillo-Breast Approach (BABA) robotic thyroidectomy without neck scarring in 2008. It also developed a new parathyroid function preservation surgery method, published in 2019, and performed the first robotic thyroid surgery in Kuwait in 2024.

SNUBH’s Department of Gynecology specializes in robotic surgery to preserve fertility and treat cancers like endometrial and ovarian cancer. The department is also a leader in training domestic and international specialists. In 2021, it made headlines when it successfully removed a giant uterine fibroid, nearly 30 centimeters, using robotic surgery.

“Achieving 20,000 robotic surgeries first among state-run hospitals reaffirms SNUBH’s leadership in minimally invasive surgery, including robotic surgery and laparoscopy,” said Song. “We will continue to lead innovations in the medical field.”