Surgeons at UCSD have performed what they say is the nation's first stomach reduction surgery through the mouth. It's part of an effort to take minimally invasive surgery to another level.
In the one-hour procedure, surgeons made five small incisions in the patient's abdomen. Then they removed 80 percent of the patient's stomach through the patient's mouth.
In the last few years, doctors have also removed gallbladders or appendixes through the mouth or vagina.
UCSD surgeon Santiago Horgan says there are definite advantages to natural orifice surgery.
"What we are seeing," says Dr. Horgan, "is less pain, post op, much quicker recovery, much quicker return to work, and less risk of hernias, because we have less incisions, and the incisions are getting smaller."
Dr. Horgan says natural orifice surgery is rapidly evolving. He says the goal is to eventually eliminate incisions all together.
