Surgery to remove the gallbladder is one of the most common
operations performed in this country by general surgeons with over 4,000 being
done in Alabama alone. Patients typically present with pain in the right upper abdomen after
eating a fatty meal. This pain can be quite intense, often sending
patients to the emergency room for evaluation. Food (especially fatty foods) stimulates the gallbladder to contract to
aid in digestion. When a patient has gallstones, intermittently these stones
will block the outlet to the gallbladder causing pain which can last from several
hours to all day. The only treatment for this is to remove the gallbladder
along with the stones it contains.
This procedure was first accomplished with the laparoscope
in 1989, which changed the course of history as it relates to general surgery. This
advance in technology leads to decreased pain, decreased recovery time, and an
improvement in cosmesis over traditional open surgery. It wasn't long before more
and more procedures were being done with this new technology with similar
results for a myriad of diagnosis and surgical diseases.
The Da Vinci Robot has taken that a step further with its
introduction of the single site platform for gallbladder surgery. Trinity Medical Center was the first in Alabama to apply this technology
and at the time of this writing have done over 30 of these cases. The
technology allows us to perform the same operation, with the same safety profile
as in traditional laparoscopy, but it does this with improved cosmesis. The
incision is nearly completely contained within the umbilicus (belly button) and
is virtually invisible when healing is complete. In my opinion, there is no
other technology that allows for this approach in virtually every patient that
desires it. I also believe that this is the tip of the iceberg as many other
procedures will be performed using this single site (incision) technology and
we are happy to be on the leading edge offering this to our patients.
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