NTU's Associate Professor Louis Phee. Prof Phee and his team developed 'robotic hands' that can perform surgery without resulting in scars. -- PHOTO: A*STAR

SINGAPORE scientists have developed a way to do surgery without scars - by getting to the site through the patient's mouth.

It is still in the trial stage, but the gadget looks promising. Three patients in India were the first to benefit. They had cancer tumours in their stomach removed within minutes and left the hospital for home the same day.

Doctors at India's Asian Institute of Gastroenterology said the robotic fingers developed by Associate Professor Louis Phee and his team at the Nanyang Technological University cut an eight-hour procedure to just 17 minutes.

Prof Phee started work on these robotic fingers six years ago - to give Professor Ho Khek Yu of the National University Hospital his dream machine. Prof Ho is a gastroenterologist. Currently, such doctors can access a patient's stomach via a tube inserted through the mouth.

But it is equipped with only one tool at the end of the tube. Prof Ho said he could do so much more if he could have both his hands at the end of the tube inside the patient.

That is what Prof Phee has developed - two tiny robotic 'hands' controlled by the two hands of the doctor. One can be used to hold a polyp or to lift up the tumour while the other is used to snip, cut or burn it off.