MONDAY, Sept. 17 (HealthDay News) -- A team of surgeons has removed a woman's gallbladder through her vagina, with a quick recovery and no pain or scars, according to a case report published in the September issue of the Archives of Surgery.
Jacques Marescaux, M.D., and colleagues at University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France, describe the case of a 30-year-old woman with symptomatic cholelithiasis, whose cholecystectomy was performed via a transvaginal approach using natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES).
The researchers found that the patient recovered quickly after surgery, with no pain or scars. She was discharged on the second postoperative day, and by the tenth postoperative day had completely resumed full activity with no discharge or bleeding, or discomfort at the perineal access site.
"Transluminal surgery is feasible and safe," Marescaux and colleagues conclude. "With its invisible mending and tremendous potential, NOTES might be the next surgical evolution."