Hugo Robot Claims 98.5% Success Rate in Prostate, Kidney, and Bladder Surgeries; Thrilled Elon Musk Makes Big Prediction

In a major step towards building advanced medical technology, Medtronic's Hugo Robot has reportedly delivered outstanding results during real surgeries, surpassing expectations and safety benchmarks across multiple procedures. The US-based medical device company has claimed that its Hugo Robot has completed 137 surgeries on prostates, kidneys, and bladders, and a remarkable 98.5 per cent success rate.

“Complication rates were super low: just 3.7% for prostate surgeries, 1.9% for kidney surgeries, and 17.9% for bladder surgeries, all beating safety goals from years of research”.

The company further stated that out of 137, only two of the surgeries required a switch to conventional techniques - one due to a robotic glitch and another because of a particularly complex patient case. 

Building on this success, Medtronic officially submitted Hugo to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on April 26 for approval in urologic procedures. The company’s submission, made in the first quarter of calendar 2025, follows the achievement of reportedly both safety and effectiveness goals in the largest FDA Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) study ever conducted for robotic-assisted urologic surgery. Medtronic now plans to expand Hugo Robot’s applications to hernia and gynecological surgeries after completing clinical trials in those areas earlier this year.

First introduced in 2019, Hugo Robot is a modular, multi-quadrant surgical system featuring wristed instruments, advanced 3D visualisation, and integrated video capture capabilities through Touch Surgery Enterprise. 

The surgical robot Hugo has even caught the attention of Elon Musk, who recently with a post on X predicted that the robot surgeons will surpass good human surgeons within a few years and the best human surgeons within 5 years. 

Musk noted that even at Neuralink, a robot was used for brain-computer electrode insertion due to the speed and precision demands beyond human capability.

“Neuralink had to use a robot for the brain-computer electrode insertion, as it was impossible for a human to achieve the required speed and precision,” Musk wrote on X.