Called Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES) for its use of natural openings in the human body, the technique is special in that it leaves no surgical scar. NOTES is performed by passing an endoscope through natural openings like the mouth, urethra, vagina and anus. [break]
SURGiVIEW-Nepal, affiliated to a US-based surgical live event technology and online healthcare educational community called SURGiVIEW, conducted a live telecast in the capital on August 20 of NOTES done at Pearl Women´s Center in Portland, Oregon by Dr Lee Swanstrom and Dr Paul Hansen.
The event attended by 150 Nepali doctors showed Dr Hansen and Dr Swanstrom using NOTES for gallbladder removal through the mouth. The Nepali doctors also had real-time interactions with the surgeons duo operating in the United States.
“It´s a fantastic technique,” said head of Surgical Department at Kathmandu Medical College (KMC) Dr Sunil Sharma, who attended the event. Doctors say there is reduced risk of infection and complications in NOTES compared to open surgery and the recovery time is also low.
The technique has been hailed internationally as a paradigm shift in medicine, comparing it with laparoscopic surgery, that uses very small incisions for abdominal operations, in the early 1980s. Dr Shail Rupakheti, who works with Dr Sharma at KMC, said the new technique will be too expensive to be tried in Nepal right now.
“The equipment using trans-gastric technique (that uses the mouth) is very expensive, costing around Rs 40 million. So, it may not be economically viable compared to laparoscopic surgery,” Dr Sharma concurred.
“Furthermore, it requires a very high level of skill and can´t be done by everybody. Even Dr Swanstrom and Dr Hansen, when I asked them during the live telecast, acknowledged it can´t be economically viable due to the limited number of surgeons who can acquire the needed skills,” Dr Sharma added.
premdhakal@myrepublica.com
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