Another first in Sri Lankan Medical History

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This op­er­a­tion was per­formed at the Ba­dul­la hos­pi­tal on a mid­dle-aged pa­tient who had been di­ag­nosed with a can­cer in his rec­tum which had ex­ten­ded up to the liv­er. This was a du­al can­cer, and sur­geons at­tend­ing to liv­er op­er­a­tions of this na­ture are very few in Sri Lan­ka

By R Ko­gu­lan and Pal­i­tha Ariya­wan­sa
For the first time in the med­i­cal his­to­ry of Sri Lan­ka an op­er­a­tion was per­formed to re­move a can­cer­ous growth ex­tend­ing from the rec­tum to­ the liv­er, us­ing the Lap­a­ro­scop­ic  An­te­ri­or  Re­sec­tion and Par­ti­al Hep­a­tec­to­my meth­od.

Ex­plain­ing this proc­ess, Can­cer Spe­cial­ist Sur­geon Dr Anu­rud­dha The­war­ap­per­u­ma said, this op­er­a­tion was per­formed at the Ba­dul­la hos­pi­tal on a mid­dle-aged pa­tient who had been di­ag­nosed with a can­cer in his rec­tum which had ex­ten­ded up to the liv­er. This was a du­al can­cer, and sur­geons at­tend­ing to liv­er op­er­a­tions of this na­ture are very few in Sri Lan­ka.

He said, re­mov­al of the can­cer in two pla­ces in the body of the pa­tient en­tails open­ing up of the body of the pa­tient, which ne­ces­si­tates a deep and lengthy cut, but with the use of this new tech­ni­que, the team of doc­tors had com­ple­ted this op­er­a­tion with­in two hours. It was al­so sta­ted that a deep cut would have caused the pa­tient to lose much blood, but as the sur­gery was done with a very mi­nor in­ci­sion, the pa­tient lost on­ly 200 ml. of  blood.

Un­der­go­ing an op­er­a­tion with the use of this meth­od may be ex­pen­sive to a pa­tient, but the ad­van­tag­es to him are more ben­e­fi­cial, than those from a nor­mal op­er­a­tion.
Dr. The­war­ap­per­u­ma ac­knowl­edged with thanks, the pro­vi­sion of lat­est equip­ment  by the Health Miinis­ter and the Ba­dul­la Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal Di­rec­tor Daya Dhar­map­riya, and the as­sis­tance giv­en to doc­tors of the Ba­dul­la Hos­pi­tal to per­form this type of sur­gery.

Trans­la­ted  by D. Ber­nard Ed­ir­i­singhe