05
Feb 09At least they didn’t rip her a new one.
Katy was telling me about this yesterday–Johns Hopkins surgeons removed a woman’s kidney through her vagina. Medicine is weird:
For several years, doctors have been learning how to do this. It’s called “transvaginal nephrectomy” or, more broadly, “natural orifice” surgery. They cut the kidney loose and pull it through an incision in the vaginal wall and out the other end.
[...]
Once the kidney is cut from its attachments to the abdominal wall and arteries and veins are stapled shut, surgeons place the kidney in a plastic bag inserted through an incision in the vaginal wall and pull it out through the vaginal opening with a string attached to the bag.
[...]
Eventually, Dr. Bessler said, he expects to use the natural-opening technique on men as well as women, with instruments passed down the throat or into the rectum to cut through the wall of the stomach or intestine.
February 6th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
um. this is what i can say.