ST. LOUIS, Aug. 4, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Imagine cancer surgery with barely a scar to show for it.
For the first time in the world, Washington University surgeons at Barnes-Jewish Hospital (http://barnesjewish.org/) removed a large kidney cancer through a single incision at the patient's belly button.
The world's first single incision robotic surgery (SIRS) was performed August 1 using the da Vinci(r) Surgical System in a two and a half hour procedure to remove a patient's kidney and a tumor measured at 12 centimeters - about twice the size of the kidney itself.
"We traditionally try to save the kidney for smaller tumors. For larger tumors, however, patients would get a very large incision on their side," says Sam Bhayani, MD, urologic surgeon at the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine. "Here, we were able to remove the tumor through a three inch incision right at the patient's belly button. Unlike the commonly performed laparoscopic surgeries, there is only one tiny incision here."
Dr. Bhayani and his colleagues have performed over 100 robotic surgeries for kidney cancer since May 2007, however those procedures required four to five tiny incisions.
"I think this is going to be a big advance when removing the entire kidney," says Dr. Bhayani. "That is typically for larger kidney tumors and it is a great advance over traditional open and laparoscopic surgeries."
In the SIRS procedure, Dr. Bhayani inserts the robotic arms through a single incision at the belly button, and sits at a nearby machine controlling the robot throughout the operation. "I'm literally controlling it do to every move," says Dr. Bhayani. "My robotic instruments are like having hands inside the body."
The benefits to performing the procedure this way are not only cosmetic, but recovery times are considered quicker as well.
Kidney cancer is diagnosed in approximately 55,000 people a year and the most common treatment option is an open surgery with a large incision about a foot long. Surgeons remove a rib and go through muscle to remove the kidney. Recovery is usually about two months with a weeklong hospital stay.
Not everyone is a candidate for this form of kidney cancer surgery as the tumor's size and the location of the tumor within the kidney can determine what type of surgery a patient should have. Smaller tumors may be treated with robotic partial nephrectomy, another surgery pioneered by Bhayani's team. Bhayani has educated surgeons from around the USA in these procedures, and will travel to Europe, South America, and Asia this year to teach the surgeries to international surgeons.
"We seem to really be pushing the envelope by doing a tumor that's 12 centimeters in size," says Dr. Bhayani. "I'd say that encompasses 99 percent of tumors and I really think we've made an advance here that we're going to be able to do for most large kidney cancers."
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