Appendectomy via the patient’s mouth?
Now, that was gross! Some may say, but as a medical student, hearing that makes me thrilled and amazed. How can it even be possible to remove an appendix through the mouth? As a medical student, I was used to removing the appendix through a small abdominal incision and laparoscopic surgery. Just recently, an experimental surgery of removing the patient’s appendix through the mouth was performed by some US surgeons, first of such surgery in the US.
Last week, surgeons at the University of California San Diego’s Center for the Future of Surgery performed the highly experimental operation, which involved guiding surgical instruments through the mouth, down the esophagus, and into the stomach with a tube-like device known as a flexible endoscope.
Jeff Scholz, a 40-year old former Marine of San Diego, was the first person in the U.S. to try the surgical procedure. He reported that he felt very little pain after the surgery and he recovered within a few days.
The procedure is known as Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES). It is less invasive that laparoscopic surgery because only one small incision is needed to insert a small camera in the belly button to complete the surgery vs. three incisions required for a laparoscopic procedure.
The procedure’s safety is of major concern. Researches are further needed to prove the safety of NOTES.
Source: WebMD
