CLASSICA at IRCAD’s Laparoscopic and Transanal Colorectal Surgery Course
Strasbourg, 12–14 June 2025 — At IRCAD’s international Laparoscopic & Transanal Colorectal Surgery course, CLASSICA Coordinator Prof. Ronan Cahill introduced the CLASSICA system through a lecture and a live demonstration. The course gathered 32 participants — both senior and junior surgeons — from around the world.
As part of the programme, attendees were able to trial the CLASSICA-OR system in a simulated operating room setup. With support from Samo Eržen (Arctur), IRCAD recreated the CLASSICA Study 2 environment using laparoscopic and transanal (TAMIS) instrumentation, along with laptops that mimicked a real surgical workflow. One laptop streamed pre-recorded surgical footage as a stand-in for the laparoscopic camera feed, while the other ran the CLASSICA-OR application.
Fifteen surgeons from various countries, including Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore, interacted directly with the system and provided practical feedback from their hands-on experience.
This simulation forms a key part of CLASSICA’s wider engagement strategy, allowing the project to involve surgical communities beyond the core consortium and gather external insights regarding usability and potential integration into clinical practice.
IRCAD, a major CLASSICA partner, is globally recognised as a leading institution for training in minimally invasive and robotic abdominal surgery. Established in 1994 by Prof. Jacques Marescaux and located at the University Hospital of Strasbourg, IRCAD trains thousands of surgeons each year both on-site and through its WebSurg online university, with mirror centres established worldwide.