How do you squeeze a kidney through a keyhole? Put it in a plastic bag and pull, it seems.
In the latest milestone in keyhole surgery, or laparoscopy, surgeons have succeeded in removing an entire kidney through a single 2.5-centimetre-wide hole in the belly button, barely leaving a scar. Kidneys are normally removed through a 25-centimetre incision across the side of the abdomen.
鈥淪urgeons have removed an entire kidney through a 2.5-centimetre-wide hole鈥�
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Pulling a fist-sized kidney through the tiny, semicircular hole involves a mixture of compressing the organ and distending the incision, says Jeffrey Cadeddu of Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, who carried out the operation. 鈥淲e place the kidney in a plastic sack like a ziplock, which is compressed as we pull it through the incision,鈥� he says. 鈥淎lso, the skin stretches quite a bit.鈥�
So far Cadeddu has performed the procedure on three people: two with kidney infections and one with a cancerous kidney. He has yet to remove a healthy kidney from a for donation 鈥� an advance that might encourage more donors to step forward 鈥� but is hopeful it will be possible without damaging the organ.
At present, the procedure takes 3 hours under general anaesthetic, but Cadeddu is confident that with practice he can halve that time.
The kidney is the latest of several organs Cadeddu has tugged out through the navel, including the gall bladder, the appendix, the spleen and the uterus.
