Surgeons in UK use new tool powered by AI for first time during live operation

A new tool powered by artificial intelligence has been used by surgeons in the UK for the first time.

The Eureka system colour codes parts of the body to help doctors protect or dissect different parts of the anatomy during surgery.

Developed by doctors in Japan who trained the tool using thousands of videos of surgical procedures, the portable AI unit was used on a UK patient for the first time on Thursday.

The woman in her 60s, who has not been named, received a bowel resection at St Mark's, the National Bowel Hospital in northwest London.

Consultant surgeon Mr Kapil Sahnan said the tool helps you "look at your live surgery and start telling you which are the hidden structures which perhaps you can't see... You have this kind of extra helping arm with artificial intelligence running at the same time as your surgery, preventing errors and making everything a lot more safe".

He added: "Another way of thinking about it is, I remember that my mother used to use an A to Z when she had to plan routes. Now we all use Google Maps and Waze.

"And this is that version of kind of navigation that now has been applied to surgery.

"The difference has been that real-time aspect, so you can see it at the same time as you're operating."

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Mr Sahnan said efforts were under way to work out how "we can genuinely prove that this is going to be advantageous and, more importantly, how we can start rolling it out".

"We're lucky to have it today, but it would be amazing if everybody had it in the next couple of years, it would make surgery for everybody a lot safer," he added.

(c) Sky News 2026: Surgeons in UK use new tool powered by AI for first time during live operation