An Incubator for Pediatric Surgery: The Innovative SI-Lab Project
Seance of wednesday 15 october 2025 (La chirurgie pédiatrique accompagne avec innovations et optimisme ses nouvelles générations)
DOI number : 10.26299/7vwx-ry88/emem.2023.42.02
Abstract
Embracing innovation allows us to better train, anticipate, collaborate, and operate on our children. From AI to robotics, through new materials and collaborations, best practices are becoming standardized, instruments are being refined, digital tools are easing the workload, augmented reality enhances precision, and simulation professionalizes surgical techniques, their indications, and the strategies associated with them.
Our young patients are not small adults, and their growth curves illustrate the remarkable diversity of body types among children and adolescents. Paradoxically, while patient numbers are lower, the pathologies, malformations, and tumors involved are extremely heterogeneous. Thus, each so-called “common” pediatric surgical condition such as esophageal atresia is operated on only 10 to 15 times per year in the two or three largest of the 32 French pediatric surgery university centers.
This explains the difficulties faced by pediatric surgeons: beyond financial, human, and methodological challenges, there is a crucial issue of attractiveness.
This is why the SI-Lab (Innovation Laboratory of Pediatric Surgery Societies) was created. The laboratory is led by the French Society of Pediatric Surgery (SFCP) and the Fondation de l’Avenir.
It is based on an original, collaborative national model that brings together surgeons and partners around innovation in pediatric surgery.
We present the SI-Lab model currently under development, illustrated by several project examples and a first assessment nine months after its launch. We also introduce the SI-Lab Partners Day, scheduled for March 23, 2026, and outline future development perspectives.
Our young patients are not small adults, and their growth curves illustrate the remarkable diversity of body types among children and adolescents. Paradoxically, while patient numbers are lower, the pathologies, malformations, and tumors involved are extremely heterogeneous. Thus, each so-called “common” pediatric surgical condition such as esophageal atresia is operated on only 10 to 15 times per year in the two or three largest of the 32 French pediatric surgery university centers.
This explains the difficulties faced by pediatric surgeons: beyond financial, human, and methodological challenges, there is a crucial issue of attractiveness.
This is why the SI-Lab (Innovation Laboratory of Pediatric Surgery Societies) was created. The laboratory is led by the French Society of Pediatric Surgery (SFCP) and the Fondation de l’Avenir.
It is based on an original, collaborative national model that brings together surgeons and partners around innovation in pediatric surgery.
We present the SI-Lab model currently under development, illustrated by several project examples and a first assessment nine months after its launch. We also introduce the SI-Lab Partners Day, scheduled for March 23, 2026, and outline future development perspectives.