A rare surgery for a rare disease

Sushma Bagwe came with severe blood vomiting and with feeble pulse and blood pressure. An emergency upper GI scopy was performed by me as the bleeding was profuse. With all the blood in stomach it was a tricky job. I noticed that she had a tumor growing in her stomach that was heavily bleeding. This tumor did not appear like a typical stomach cancer or a peptic ulcer. In order to stop the bleeding, using the endoscope I injected medication around the tumor That stopped the bleeding. Subsequently she was shifted back to ICU and was transfused four units of blood to restore her blood. I also took mulitple biopsies to know what was the nature of the tumor but to my dismay it did not indicate much. I repeated the biopsy again but that also was not conclusive. Subsequently CT scan was performed but even that was not conclusive of the nature of the tumor. I planned out the surgery for her. Instead of opening her abdomen with a large incision, I decided to give her the benefit of Minimally invasive surgery. I performed a total Laparoscopic partial stomach removal (Partial gastrectomy) using harmonic scalpel and endostaplers. This gave her the benefit of fast recovery, minimal post operative pain and almost invisible scar. The diagnosis of the tumour was leiomyoma – benign stomach tumor. Her condition was solved. Thus minimally invasive procedure that I used on this patient (endoscopy and laparoscopy) once again saved the life of a patient and cured her from her disease with minimal pain.