Doctors test new surgical method

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A new surgical technique might help doctors operate on internal organs

without making cuts in the skin, researchers reported yesterday.

Using a flexible mini-telescope called an endoscope, surgeons said they

could go in through a patient's mouth and make a cut in the stomach wall to

reach abdominal organs. They believe such a method would allow patients to

heal more quickly after surgery.

Tests on animals showed they could get through the stomach wall and the thin

membrane surrounding the stomach called the peritoneum to repair the

intestines, liver, pancreas, gall bladder and uterus.

They call the new method flexible transgastric peritoneoscopy, or FTP, and

describe it in the July issue of the journal Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.

" FTP may dramatically change the way we practice surgery, " said Dr.

Kalloo of s Hopkins University, who led the study.

" The technique is less invasive than even laparoscopy because we don't have

to cut through the skin and muscle of the abdomen, and it may prove a viable

alternate to existing surgical procedures. "

A laparoscope is a fibre-optic instrument inserted through the abdomen to

give a view of the organs.

The abdomen contains the stomach, bowels and reproductive organs.

Researchers at Hong Kong and U.S. medical facilities tested their endoscopic

technique on pigs.

But Dr. Urbach, an assistant professor of medicine at the University

of Toronto, told the Star's Elaine Carey it is hard to see a good

application for the technique at this point.

Many complex operations such as removing gall bladders are day surgery now,

using laparoscopy, which requires only minor skin incisions, and patients

recover quickly, said Urbach, a gastrointestinal surgeon at Toronto General

Hospital.

The endoscopic procedure is riskier, he said, because if the stomach

incision is not closed properly, there could be dangerous leakage into the

abdominal cavity.