Lithuanian medtech robotics company Sentante has successfully demonstrated a first-of-a-kind remote stroke procedure in Scotland — performed by specialist surgeons guiding the interventions from different hospitals in Florida, USA and Dundee, Scotland.
Full end-to-end thrombectomies were performed on perfused non-living subjects with procedure-authentic pathology in the Image Guided Therapy Research Facility (IGTRF) Image Guided Therapy Research Facility (IGTRF) at the University of Dundee.
I spoke to CEO Edvardas Satkauskas to learn more.
Reinventing vascular care through remote robotics
Sentante is a medical robotics company founded in 2017, building a haptic, device-agnostic endovascular platform that enables clinicians to perform complex vascular procedures remotely with full tactile feedback.
Designed to integrate with existing cath-lab infrastructure, Sentante aims to expand access, improve clinician safety, and elevate procedural consistency across peripheral vascular, neurovascular and cardiovascular applications.
Closing the distance gap in time-critical stroke treatment
Satkauskas asserts that vascular or remote stroke procedures are one of the areas where remote intervention could bring the biggest benefit, because time is critical.
“The sooner you intervene, the better the patient outcomes.”
According to Satkauskas, for an ischaemic stroke, the difference between walking out of the hospital and a lifetime of disability can be just two to three hours.
“Today, patients are often transported long distances to reach one of a limited number of thrombectomy centres.”
The remote stroke procedure proves the potential of Sentante’s technology to save the lives and prognoses of patients suffering stroke episodes in remote settings; at present, only 212 patients received a Thrombectomy across Scotland in 2024.
This represents only 2.2 per cent of the total number of people who had an ischemic stroke.
Aiming for gold
While medical robotics is a rapidly evolving field with numerous surgical robots currently being tested or showcased for remote interventions, according to Satkauskas, in the endovascular space, while several companies have attempted to introduce robotics, it’s challenging because one must control soft, flexible, and long instruments across diverse procedures.
“It’s complex. That’s why there’s no 'gold standard' robotic system yet in this field. But we’re working to bring that.At the same time, vascular procedures are among the least robotised today.
There’s a huge need, but nothing truly usable yet. This is where Sentante aims to transform the way such patients are treated.”
Sentante started prototyping after meeting a vascular surgeon—who is still a practising vascular surgeon — who had the idea and clinical need for this technology in his daily practice.
Satkauskas explained:
“It came directly from a clinical problem. But, you know, it’s one thing to need something — like saying “we need flying cars”—and another thing to actually build it.
We had an excellent technical team, we began prototyping, and at some point, we saw that yes, this could become a very exciting technology with real impact. And here we are, seven years later, treating patients.”
Bringing “hands-on” precision to remote robotics
With Sentante, the specialist comes to the patient over a secure network, and performs the entire procedure remotely—with the same tactile feel and control they have at the bedside.
Surgeons are guided by two senses: visual—through X-ray imaging — and tactile — what they feel with their hands. According to Satkauskas:
“If you take away one of those, you lose critical information. For us, haptics were a must-have. We built the entire technology around it.”
And the best way to perceive that feedback—which is digitally transmitted—is to perform the procedure the same way as in a manual operation.
Satkauskas contends that if you push a guidewire or catheter and feel resistance, you can interpret it immediately.
“A joystick wouldn’t give the same understanding. Any vascular surgeon will tell you that they often anticipate what is happening before they see it on the screen, based on how it feels and how tension builds inside the vessel.
Good physicians combine action, perception, and visualisation using both senses. If you give them a robot they can “control” but without tactile information, it becomes more like a video game — not a procedure. Without sensing what you’re doing, you risk injury because robots can be strong.”
Further, the platform can be used for many diverse procedures: peripheral vascular, stenting, coiling, and embolisation.
In most cases, the physician would control the robot from a control room. But that already brings major benefits: doctors avoid harmful X-ray exposure and no longer need heavy lead aprons, which cause back pain, orthopaedic issues, cataracts, cancer risks, and more. It also brings accuracy, precision, stability, safety, and fewer human-error-induced mistakes.
“Once you can do the entire procedure from a room, that room can be in another hospital — then you can treat stroke patients remotely. And that’s what we demonstrated in this experiment,” shared Satkauskas.
In terms of the demonstration, two distinguished operators performed remote stroke interventions. World-renowned endovascular neurosurgeon Ricardo Hanel, MD, PhD, co-medical director of the Stroke & Cerebrovascular Centre performed the transatlantic procedure, operating from Baptist Medical Center, Jacksonville on a unique, perfused human cadaver model located at Dundee University in Scotland.
Professor Iris Grunwald, MD, PhD, an interventional neuroradiologist, also performed a remote stroke thrombectomy in the same location from a remote hospital in Dundee. She is a global leader in interventional stroke treatment training and pioneered the use of AI in diagnostic stroke imaging:
“We were honoured to be a test site for this groundbreaking use of remote robotic technology," said Michael A. Mayo, DHA, FACHE, president and CEO of Baptist Health.
"Dr Hanel and the team here at Baptist Health provide world-class neurosurgical interventions each day, and the potential for these life saving procedures to be delivered in a timely manner can bring new sources of hope and healing to a countless number of patients.”
The University of Dundee is the official global training centre of the World Federation for Interventional Stroke Treatment (WIST), housing a unique surgical environment with human models for research and device testing under authentic conditions - before moving into patient trials.
Solving latency in life-critical remote procedures
As part of the demonstration, the procedure also evaluated network performance and latency over the transatlantic link, with Sentante partnering with Mischa Dohler, VP of Emerging Technologies at Ericsson, to establish multi-path connectivity and maintain a stable, secure connection for mission-critical use. As part of the Nvidia Inception Program,
Sentante took advantage of state-of-the-art technologies purpose-built for developing healthcare robots, supporting low-latency robotic applications and future developments of autonomous robotic systems and Physical AI.
Sentante has developed a proprietary sensory system embedded in both the bedside robotic unit and the remote control station, enabling the transmission of high-resolution data multiple times per second.
This architecture ensures that clinicians receive highly accurate, real-time feedback throughout the procedure.
“If the two units are hard-wired, there is virtually no latency,” Satkauskas explained.
“Over the internet, of course, latency appears — but the real question is: what level is acceptable, what is noticeable, and what could impact safety? These are not high-speed movements, and in most of our testing, doctors don’t perceive any delay at all.”
Only when the connection quality drops significantly does latency become noticeable — but even then, it doesn’t affect the safety or efficiency of the intervention. The company has also tested the tolerance limits.
“Latency is inherent to remote procedures, but we have several technological safeguards and solutions in place to manage it effectively.”
Sentante has also completed a clinical trial in peripheral vascular interventions using the same core platform operated from a control room adjacent to the theatre.
Sentante’s robotic system is currently advancing through regulatory pathways for peripheral vascular interventions, with market entry targeted for 2026. The aim is to help tackle growing workloads, staffing shortages, occupational hazards for clinicians, and variability in care quality.
Remote stroke thrombectomy remains in the pre-clinical phase and is not yet approved; it will follow a parallel regulatory pathway as an extension of the platform, with the long-term goal of significantly improving patient access to timely stroke treatment. “
Remote stroke treatment is one of the strongest real-world cases in medical robotics,” said Satkauskas.
“You need precision, stability, safety and teleoperation all at once. Our platform was built from day one to deliver exactly that.”
Professor Iris Grunwald described the technology as a breakthrough for stroke care. She highlighted the realism of the procedure and its potential to reshape access to life-saving treatment.
“This is one of the most exciting innovations in stroke intervention in the last decade,” she said.
“What amazed me most was how tactile the experience was — my hands felt exactly as they would during a conventional thrombectomy. Remote robotics has the power to decouple expertise from geography, enabling specialists to perform complex neurovascular procedures from thousands of miles away.”
Ricardo Hanel, MD, PhD, added:
“Tele-neurointervention will allow us to decrease the gap and further our reach to provide one of the most impactful procedures in humankind—the thrombectomy — to more people. To operate from the US to Scotland with a 120 millisecond (blink of an eye) lag is truly remarkable.”
Lead image: Sentante.
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