The lower esophageal sphincter is a bothersome little junction that so often fails to do its job: either it’s too loose and burps up hot acid after each meal, or it’s too tight and won’t let anything down. Although we jam all sorts of devices down there to determine the need for surgical intervention, it’s […]

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Despite all of the breathless praise being heaped on NOTES at this year’s SAGES, there was still considerable excitement about single port access laparoscopy, another kind of über-minimally invasive surgery that has made great strides over the past year. In this two-part series, we’ll take a look at some of the devices that have made this platform […]

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During the SAGES emerging technologies session, which to us was like an early Christmas, Dr. Dmitry Nepomnayshy presented his experience using the EndoBarrier, an endoscopically-deployed impermeable tube that is placed in the duodenum to prevent absorption.
Two patients have received the full treatment so far; within twelve weeks, one lost 11 pounds and the other 26 pounds. […]

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In an earlier post, we explored one combination of robotics and NOTES that involved deploying da Vinci instrumentation through transvaginal and transcolonic trocars.
At the NOTES symposium at SAGES today, Dr. Dmitry Oleynikov of the University of Nebraska Medical Center upped the technological ante even further, debuting a new mini robot that is contained entirely within the […]

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 There’s no question that the increased clarity and anatomic detail of high definition images are major advantages during laparoscopy. So far we’ve used the Storz and Stryker systems and have been impressed with both. Recording the beautiful images they provide, however, remains a major remaining challenge. Although Storz and Stryker each offer their own capture systems, both […]

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Surgeons at UCSD made history last month by performing the first NOTES appendectomy in the United States. We spoke with lead surgeon Dr. Santiago Horgan about the details of the procedure and the future of the NOTES technique.

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A recent article details several new features being developed for the da Vinci robot by researchers at the Imperial College of London. In other news, machines are rapidly overtaking man.

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In a sign that the future of minimally-invasive surgery is surely upon us, Dr. Ralph Clayman, Dr. Geoffrey Box and colleagues at UC Irvine report in this month’s Journal of Endourology that they have successfully performed a robot-assisted NOTES nephrectomy on a porcine model.

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We’re getting just a little closer to hassle-free 3D images in the operating room. Last week Samsung announced that their line-up of 3D-ready televisions would finally debut in South Korea, and should be arriving in the United States in the next month or so.

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One of the main problems with laparoscopic surgery is that the images offer no sense of depth, which can confuse novice surgeons and makes instrument placement more difficult. With 3D imaging, however, it is possible to overcome this problem. Modifications of old technologies, as well as the recent development of some new ones, have made […]

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