Health Highlights: April 20, 2007

ByABC News
March 23, 2008, 11:36 PM

Mar. 23 -- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments,compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Surgeons Remove Woman's Gallbladder Through Vagina

In a procedure that required only minimal external incisions, surgeons used a flexible endoscope to remove a woman's gallbladder through her vagina. This new procedure, which is being used in an ongoing clinical trail, may help reduce pain, visible scarring and recovery time.

The NOTES (natural orifice translumenal endoscopic surgery) procedure was performed by doctors at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. They inserted the endoscope through the woman's vaginal wall and into her body cavity. Using the endoscope, along with laparoscopic instruments inserted through the abdomen, the surgeons detached the gallbladder and removed it through the vagina.

"Advances in minimally invasive surgical techniques over the last 15 years have dramatically reduced the number of open abdominal surgeries necessary -- eliminating a great deal of the associated discomfort. This latest revolutionary advance -- abdominal surgery through a natural orifice -- represents the culmination of this progression," Dr. Marc Bessler, who led the surgery, said in a prepared statement.

"This technique allows us to make smaller and fewer skin incisions. And, in the future, some abdominal surgeries will be possible without any external incisions," said Bessler, director of laparoscopic surgery and director of the Center for Obesity Surgery at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia and assistant professor of surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Bessler is scheduled to make a presentation on the procedure this Sunday at the annual meeting of the Society of American Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Surgeons in Las Vegas.

New York Presbyterian/Columbia is also using the NOTES technique for appendectomy, abdominal exploration and biopsy. In the future, NOTES may be performed through the mouth or rectum.