The Virtuoso system has now been used to treat 20 patients as part of the VIABLE trial (Virtuoso Improving Anatomic Bladder Lesion Excision), with the 20th case completed on April 21, 2026. The trial is being conducted at Prince of Wales Hospital, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), under principal investigator Dr. Jeremy Teoh.
Since the first phase of the trial, 14 additional patients were treated over three operating days on March 9, April 20 and April 21, 2026. These cases were performed by two additional CUHK urologic surgeons. To date, a total of 36 bladder lesions have been removed using the Virtuoso system.
Although the en bloc surgical technique is supported by a growing body of clinical evidence, its adoption has been limited by how technically demanding the procedure is with conventional instruments. Virtuoso Surgical designed its system to make the technique achievable for a broader range of urologists, and successful cases by surgeons new to operating the system are an important step in demonstrating that.
The milestone follows several others over the past year. The Virtuoso system received FDA Breakthrough Device Designation in September 2025, and results from the first phase of the trial were published in European Urology Oncology. Dr. Teoh also described the platform and those first cases in a March 2026 article for AUANews.
Throughout 2026, Dr. Teoh has shared the VIABLE trial with the international urology community. He presented at the European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress and at the ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, where he discussed robotic en bloc resection in a lecture on optimizing surgical management of bladder cancer and spoke about the trial in a video interview with UroToday.
This study was conducted under CUHK Ethics Board approval. The Virtuoso system is investigational and has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or any other regulatory body.
About Virtuoso Surgical
Virtuoso Surgical has developed a new class of robotic surgery system designed to improve minimally invasive endoscopic surgery. The Virtuoso system features a pair of needle sized instrument arms made of concentric nitinol tubes that mimic a surgeon’s hand motions, providing control and dexterity at the tip of a rigid endoscope. The system uses patented technology initially developed by Virtuoso’s founders at Johns Hopkins University, Vanderbilt University, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center, with funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. For additional information, visit www.virtuososurgical.net.