New Approach to Gallbladder Surgery, Smallest Reported Incision

UCSD: A surgical team at UC San Diego Health has completed the first series of operations with a novel surgical system that can remove a diseased gallbladder through a single incision hidden in the belly button. Santiago Horgan, MD, chief of minimally invasive surgery, was able to successfully remove the gallbladder through a 15-millimeter incision – roughly half an inch. This is believed to be the smallest reported successful incision for this procedure. “What we are seeing is the rapid evolution of traditional laparoscopy toward less and smaller incisions — just one tiny incision, in fact,” said Horgan, professor of surgery and director of the Center for the Future of Surgery, UC San Diego School of Medicine. “Normally, a gallbladder removal would be performed with four incisions across the abdomen. We achieved the surgery with one small cut hidden in the umbilicus. So not only are there fewer incisions, the one that remains is incredibly small.”

Gallbladder disease

Author: Dr John Maa University of California San Francisco 2008-07-29
Gallbladder disease: Symptoms, diagnosis, and intervention with cholecystectomy

Introduction

The gallbladder is a small, pear shaped organ adherent to the undersurface of the liver, whose purpose is to store bile produced by the liver to assist in digestion. While gallstones are very common, the majority of patients with gallstones are asymptomatic during their life, with only 1 to 2 % developing symptoms each year (1). The incidence of gallstones increases with age, and by the age of 70 approximately 20% of Americans have gallstones. Many patients are discovered at autopsy to have stones which were silent throughout their lifetime.