New Technology Enables Quick and Scarless Surgery for Stomach Tumors
Summary
As of July 1st, a new technology was successfully implemented in the operations of patients suffering from gastric tumours in their stomachs. Instead of going through an eight hour operation, this new procedure lasts only a few minutes and does not require hospitalization. This new procedure is an endoscopy robotic surgery, in which a flexible endoscope with small robotic arms is inserted into the patient’s mouth, making its way down to the stomach. Meanwhile, the surgeon uses a joystick to control the progress of the arm through the body whilst watching it on a monitored computer screen. Using his joystick control, the surgeon removes the cancerous tumour from the stomach, after which the patient may go directly home. Other robotic keyhole surgery techniques require a surgical cut to be made at the stomach area in order to enable a rigid robotic endoscope to carry out the surgery; however, this new flexible endoscope technique doesn’t need any incision. This new procedure allows the surgeon to perform the surgery without puncturing the stomach wall or opening up the patient, which was the standard procedure before. Other advantages of this surgery include the fact that it can also make an incision in the stomach wall and access nearby organs such as the pancreas, liver, kidneys, etc, after which it returns to the stomach and seals the incision.
Response
I believe that this is a ground-breaking discovery that will be used widely in the future as an easier alternative to open surgery. I would personally be scared going into an operation knowing that they were about to make an incision and cut me open in an operation that could last for eight hours, would lead to anxiety and stress for me and maybe countless others. However, I’d feel much better knowing that this new procedure would only require me to open my mouth and then I would most likely be on anaesthesia or put to sleep for a few minutes (the most would be an hour). Since the surgery is done by a joystick controller and monitored on a computer screen, eventually there might come a time where these surgeries can be carried out by any surgeon around the world. The advantages of this new technology are that it is less time consuming, cheaper than traditional surgeries, more precise and can easily manoeuvre once inside the system. The few disadvantages are that some people might prefer to do surgery the “old-fashioned” way since they rely on their own hands instead of machines and technology. Also, this is a recently developed technology and has not yet been used widely, so we can’t judge it based on success as of yet. This new technology affects me as a student because as I’m studying biology, it is constantly changing with new inventions and technology which makes life easier for doctors/medical researchers. This also obviously affects me as a citizen, because if I ever need surgery done, I’d feel very much at ease knowing that it will only take a few minutes or up to an hour and I can go home straight afterwards. I’d feel more secure with our medical system and I would proud of our advance as a society knowing that there may come a time when all a person has to do for a surgery is open their mouth.
Source - MLA Format
Rosewald, Mary. "New technology enables quick and scarless surgery for stomach tumors | Metsoc - University of Windsor." University of Windsor. N.p., 6 July 2011. Web. 19 June 2012. <http://www.uwindsor.ca/clubs/metsoc/new-technology-enables-quick-and-scarless-surgery-for-stomach-tumors>.
As of July 1st, a new technology was successfully implemented in the operations of patients suffering from gastric tumours in their stomachs. Instead of going through an eight hour operation, this new procedure lasts only a few minutes and does not require hospitalization. This new procedure is an endoscopy robotic surgery, in which a flexible endoscope with small robotic arms is inserted into the patient’s mouth, making its way down to the stomach. Meanwhile, the surgeon uses a joystick to control the progress of the arm through the body whilst watching it on a monitored computer screen. Using his joystick control, the surgeon removes the cancerous tumour from the stomach, after which the patient may go directly home. Other robotic keyhole surgery techniques require a surgical cut to be made at the stomach area in order to enable a rigid robotic endoscope to carry out the surgery; however, this new flexible endoscope technique doesn’t need any incision. This new procedure allows the surgeon to perform the surgery without puncturing the stomach wall or opening up the patient, which was the standard procedure before. Other advantages of this surgery include the fact that it can also make an incision in the stomach wall and access nearby organs such as the pancreas, liver, kidneys, etc, after which it returns to the stomach and seals the incision.
Response
I believe that this is a ground-breaking discovery that will be used widely in the future as an easier alternative to open surgery. I would personally be scared going into an operation knowing that they were about to make an incision and cut me open in an operation that could last for eight hours, would lead to anxiety and stress for me and maybe countless others. However, I’d feel much better knowing that this new procedure would only require me to open my mouth and then I would most likely be on anaesthesia or put to sleep for a few minutes (the most would be an hour). Since the surgery is done by a joystick controller and monitored on a computer screen, eventually there might come a time where these surgeries can be carried out by any surgeon around the world. The advantages of this new technology are that it is less time consuming, cheaper than traditional surgeries, more precise and can easily manoeuvre once inside the system. The few disadvantages are that some people might prefer to do surgery the “old-fashioned” way since they rely on their own hands instead of machines and technology. Also, this is a recently developed technology and has not yet been used widely, so we can’t judge it based on success as of yet. This new technology affects me as a student because as I’m studying biology, it is constantly changing with new inventions and technology which makes life easier for doctors/medical researchers. This also obviously affects me as a citizen, because if I ever need surgery done, I’d feel very much at ease knowing that it will only take a few minutes or up to an hour and I can go home straight afterwards. I’d feel more secure with our medical system and I would proud of our advance as a society knowing that there may come a time when all a person has to do for a surgery is open their mouth.
Source - MLA Format
Rosewald, Mary. "New technology enables quick and scarless surgery for stomach tumors | Metsoc - University of Windsor." University of Windsor. N.p., 6 July 2011. Web. 19 June 2012. <http://www.uwindsor.ca/clubs/metsoc/new-technology-enables-quick-and-scarless-surgery-for-stomach-tumors>.