Medical Reports: Scarless Surgery

WSVN -- When you are facing life-saving surgery, the last thing most patients worry about is having a nasty scar.

Dana Johnson: "It was like a stabbing, a lot of knives stabbing me repeatedly."

Dana Johnson was told she needed emergency surgery to remove her gall bladder. Alberto Ramirez had bone cancer in his sinuses.

Alberto Ramirez: "You don't think you're going to get cancer, then you find out you do, and you deal with it."

Traditionally, both patients would have faced invasive surgery, which would have left large scars but both received a new kind of treatment called Natural Orifice Surgery. The surgeon enters the body through a small opening using a flexible endoscopy tube.

Dr. Roy Casiano: "Sometimes you have to cut through nerves and vessels and a variety of other things, where as, this way, we go directly."

In the past, doctors would have had to cut into Alberto's face in order to remove his tumor, but, under the new technique?

Alberto Ramirez: "The doctor went in using the endoscope and going through the nose. He removed a large section of the bone."

Leaving no scar.

Alberto Ramirez: "I think it's phenomenal. I would probably look very different if we didn't have that technology today."

And, for Dana, it was through the bellybutton.

Dana: "You can hardly even tell. You can look at my bellybutton really close and just see a tiny stitch."

Dr. Roy Casiano from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine says, it's essentially major surgery without a major incision.

Dr. Roy Casiano: "The surgery is designed to achieve the same amount of tumor removal but through the small orifice."

But it's not all about leaving no scar.

Dr. Roy Casiano: "You have less problems with wounds, scaring with infections of the wounds, with prolonged hospitalization."

And that means a quicker recovery time and less pain.

Alberto Ramirez: "I was back to work within less than a week."

Diana Diaz: "Surgeons can also perform appendectomies through the mouth, and believe this new kind of procedure will keep expanding.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Dr. Roy Casiano
Department of Otolaryngology
UMHC Suite #4025 (D-1)
1475 NW 12th Avenue
Miami, FL 33136
305-243-3564
rcasiano@med.miami.edu
www.med.miami.edu