Open wide — your appendix is about to be removed through your mouth.
It sounds unbelievable, but it’s just one of the ways doctors are using our natural orifices to avoid skin incisions and scarring in surgery.
More than 1,000 patients in Britain, Europe and the U.S. have undergone so-called natural orifice surgery, which many doctors see as the biggest advance since keyhole was pioneered.
Instead of cutting the skin, the new approach uses natural orifices — the mouth, urethra, vagina and rectum — as internal highways to access and remove or repair internal organs.
The first woman to have her appendix removed through her vagina, needed only paracetamol after the procedure and was back at work two days later
Already, it has been used to remove appendices, gallbladders, prostates and diseased kidneys.
New robotic cutting devices in development that snake their way through body cavities will increase the scope of the technique.
‘With further advancement in medical robotics we are likely to be able to do more and more complex surgery through natural orifices.
'There are many trials under way around the world,’ says Dr Mikael Sodergren, academic clinical lecturer in surgery and specialist registrar in general surgery at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
The technique offers the multiple attractions of scarless surgery, reduced pain because of fewer and smaller incisions, and lower risk of infections.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2127421/Scar-free-operation-removes-appendix-MOUTH.html#ixzz1rgFI0NSI
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