Shorter hospital stay with new hysterectomy procedure

The new treatment,called Embryonic natural orifice trans umbilical endoscopic surgery (ENOTES),allows doctors to remove an uterus by opening the naval route even without making a single cut in the body.

“In this surgery,we can insert required surgical instruments,including a camera,through the naval orifice and remove the perverted uterus through the same route,” says Dr Shivani Sachdev Gaur,a gynaecologist at the city-based Phoenix hospital.

Gaur,who has recently conducted such a surgery,said the treatment saves patients from extensive pain and long hospitalisation among several other complexities like post surgical scars.

“ENOTES,though it very new much new in India helps in the speedy recovery of the patients,making their hospital stay short and enabling them to join their work early,” said Dr Asha Sharma,head Gynaecology at Rockland Hospital.

In India,hysterectomy is presently being done either by the traditional method of open surgery or with the help of laparoscopy in which the uterus is removed through small cuts or from vaginal route.

The open surgery is done by the abdominal route,which means making a vertical cut in the woman’s abdomen and removing the uterus through it,doctors said.

The modified laparscopic surgery,Gaur said,is being preferred by a large number of women as it leaves no scar on the body which are considered as “beauty spoilers”.

Sharma,however,warns that patients should opt for any treatment only after through consultation with doctors as the success of any method depends case to case.

“If the uterus has become extra large in size,the only effective way to remove it is to perform an open surgery as it cannot be cured through small openings,” she said.

“One out of five women in India suffers from menstrual disorders like excessive bleeding because of adverse changes in uterus,but a very few of them go under the knife fearing surgical hassles,” says Dr Lavleena Nadir,senior gynaecologist and laparoscopic surgeon at Fortis La Femme hospital.

They say the new surgery is also a step ahead of vaginal hysterectomy where the entire surgery is done through the vagina.