It is the first time that a magnetic stomach tube developed for this purpose has been used remotely on a living animal, the federal technology institute ETH Zurich announced on Monday.
The researchers hope that this will improve surgical care in remote areas where there is a lack of specialist knowledge. The procedure was carried out in May as part of a joint study by ETH Zurich and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Researchers reported their experiment in the journal Advanced Intelligent Systems. According to the university, ETH doctoral student Alexandre Mesot controlled the feeding tube with the joystick of a Playstation controller. He watched on a screen as the probe moved through the stomach of the anaesthetized pig, which was lying around 9,300 kilometres away in an operating theatre.
Magnetic stomach tube
In addition to a good Internet connection, this was made possible by a gastric probe developed at ETH Zurich. The head of the endoscope, as gastric tubes are known in technical jargon, consists of a magnet. It is controlled by a magnetic field.
It is smaller than conventional endoscopes, according to the university. It can therefore be inserted through the nose instead of the mouth, as was previously the case. This is less stressful and patients do not have to be put under general anesthesia.
The device has not yet been tested on humans, but researchers have high hopes for their feeding tube.
“There is a lot of potential in this technology. I’m thinking of minimally invasive procedures in the gastrointestinal tract, such as cancer screening,” Professor Bradley Nelson, who was responsible for the trial, was quoted as saying in the press release.
Translated from German by DeepL/mga
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
What factors should be taken into account when inheriting Swiss citizenship abroad?
Should there be a limit to the passing on of Swiss citizenship? Or is the current practice too strict and it should still be possible to register after the age of 25?
Is your place of origin, your Heimatort, important to you?
Every Swiss citizen has a Heimatort, a place of origin, but many have never visited theirs. What’s your relationship with your Heimatort? What does it mean to you?
This content was published on
Scientists have shown that bonobos combine their calls into complex sound sequences that resemble combinations of human words.
This content was published on
US parliamentarians have threatened the UN Human Rights Council with sanctions similar to those against the International Criminal Court (ICC).
This content was published on
Thanks to abundant snowfall, lift operators benefited from increased visitor numbers, with the number of guests jumping by 12% year-on-year.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.