King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre performed the first successful single-port robotic liver transplant globally, for a six-year-old child whose father donated part of his liver to save him from recurrent episodes of acute liver failure.

The child suffered from hereditary diabetes.

The child's father donated the left lobe of his liver. The child, who suffers from hereditary diabetes due to Wolcott-Rallison syndrome, showed good early recovery, with the transplanted liver part functioning efficiently and no complications observed.

The single-port robot relies on inserting precise surgical instruments and a high-definition three-dimensional camera through a single small surgical incision, unlike traditional robotic surgery which is performed through multiple incisions, and through this single port.

The surgeons were able to perform the most delicate stages of liver transplantation inside a small body that cannot tolerate much intervention, through a narrow path requiring extremely precise handling of blood vessels and bile ducts, which contributed to reducing surgical impact, alleviating pain, accelerating recovery, and shortening hospital stay.

The head of the medical team, Professor Dieter Broering, explained that the success of this type of operation is not related to the availability of technology alone, but to the accuracy of case selection, surgical planning, and the team's experience in handling all stages of transplantation, noting that the true value of surgical innovation appears when technology contributes to reducing the burden on the patient and their family.

This achievement is an extension of a pioneering path that the Specialist started in 2023 by performing the first complete robotic liver transplant in the world, and evolved into an integrated robotic liver transplant program that has completed 165 cases to date, supported by expertise from over 1,700 robotic surgeries for partial liver resection from living donors.

The Specialist was ranked first in the Middle East and Africa, and 12th globally among the top 250 academic healthcare institutions worldwide for 2026, and the highest-value healthcare brand in the Kingdom and the Middle East for 2026 according to Brand Finance, and was included in Newsweek's lists of the world's best hospitals, best smart hospitals, and best specialized hospitals for 2026.