The new surgery technique is named Anubis, after the Egyptian god.
French doctors have for the first time removed a gallbladder without making an incision in the patient’s body.
The medical team used a flexible 1.3 meter long endoscope, which was inserted through the woman’s vagina. Using remote-controlled tools as small as 2 mm, and a miniature camera, the galbladder was dissected and removed, in an operation which lasted three hours.
The surgeons claim that this technique can be used through all natural orifices: mouth and stomach, vagina, urethra and rectum. The main advantage is that these body parts heal a lot more quickly than the skin, and that infections, often associated with incisions in the abdomen, are avoided. The fact that the operation leaves no scar is an aesthetical and psychological bonus.
Over time, this method opens the way to more complicated surgery, such as the removal of an infected appendix, liver tumors, etc.
The technique is named Anubis, after the jackal-headed Egyptian god of embalming, who used long and flexible tools to embalm the body of the god Osiris.
