Natural Orifice Translumenal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES): Removed Gall Bladder with Minimal External Incisions

Filed in archive Diagnostics , Treatment on April 26, 2007

As part of an ongoing clinical research trial, medical and surgical endoscopists at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center were able to remove a woman's gall bladder through the vagina with the use of a flexible endoscope with only minimal external incisions.

The said technique - called NOTES (natural orifice translumenal endoscopic surgery) - is a procedure where-in the endoscope was inserted through the patient's vaginal wall and into her body cavity. Using that endoscope (with minimal assistance from abdominally-inserted laparoscopic instruments), the gallbladder was detached and removed through the vagina, which was then sutured.

According to Dr. Bessler, director of laparoscopic surgery and director of the Center for Obesity Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia and assistant professor of surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons:

"Advances in minimally invasive surgical techniques over the last 15 years have dramatically reduced the number of open abdominal surgeries necessary -- eliminating a great deal of the associated discomfort.

This latest revolutionary advance -- abdominal surgery through a natural orifice -- represents the culmination of this progression.

This technique allows us to make smaller and fewer skin incisions. And, in the future, some abdominal surgeries will be possible without any external incisions."

This revolutionary procedure may prove to have advantages over traditional gall bladder surgeries, including reduced pain, quicker recovery time and absence of visible scarring.

On top of the gall bladder surgery, NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia also offers the NOTES approach for appendectomy, abdominal exploration and biopsy.

[In the future, NOTES may be performed though the mouth or the rectum.]

For more information on this procedure, patients may call (866) NYP-NEWS.

Find more details from the full report.

[Photo Credit: Antonine Education]