Thanks to the help of a robot, surgeons in Toulouse were able to treat kidney cancer by treating it outside the body. A world first.
Currently, there are several methods for eliminate cancers or cancerous tumors. The most common are surgery and chemotherapy. Some forms can also be treated with radiotherapy.
However, these 3 methods have one thing in common. It is in vivo treatments, ie carried out directly in the organism. And until now, it was not possible to cure cancer ex vivo or outside the body. However, it is the feat that surgeons from the Toulouse University Hospital have managed to accomplish.
On January 7, the daily Midi Libre relayed in detail this feat which is to date a world first. And to achieve this, the surgeons were able to count on a major asset: technology.
Kidney cancer treated twice
To better understand this exceptional case, we have to go back to October 2021. At that time, the patient received a worrying diagnosis. Indeed, she has kidney cancer taking the form of 6 tumors spread over both organs. If they are considered to be “low aggressiveness”, the surgeons take him to the operating room to remove these tumours.
They then realize percutaneous thermoablation. This operation consists of the use of heat passing through fear to eliminate cancerous tumors. But the operation is not entirely a success. If right kidney cancer is eliminated, tumors on the left kidney are difficult to access. In addition, the patient’s urethra is damaged.
If nothing is done, more serious surgery should be considered. The researchers then had the idea of removing the left kidney from the body in order to eliminate the tumors more easily. For that, they use a robot-assistance of extraordinary precision.
Never performed to date, an innovative robot-assisted surgical technique has enabled an “ex-vivo” ablation of #tumors on a #reinfollowed by kidney auto-transplantation with repair of the ureter @CHUdeToulouse #health #surgery
— DH MAGAZINE (@MagazineDh) January 5, 2023
Robotic-assisted surgeries that might revolutionize patient treatment
The robot removes the kidney from the patient’s body without negatively impacting the rest of the body. Then the doctors carried out an ablation of the tumors present on the left kidney before reimplanting it in the body. As soon as the kidney is completely healed, the patient’s urethra will also be reimplanted.
In addition to marking modern medicine, this operation opens the way to new treatment possibilities. According to the surgeons who performed the operation, “This promising medical strategy opens up new possibilities in the treatment of multiple and complex kidney lesions. “.
