Abstract:
Laparoscopy has been a boon to mankind. Its first use has evolved during the 80’s & 90’s only for benign diseases. Over the years, it has evolved in complex cancer surgeries mainly abdominal & thorasic cancers. Last 10 years has seen the outcomes of minimally invasive cancer surgeries & its advantages to open surgeries with the advances in technology-instruments & techniques specially for colorectal, gynecology & gastrointestinal cancers.
We started our laparoscopy career in 2010 & started off with benign surgeries & eventually started minimally invasive cancer surgeries in rural western India. The most common cancer in India in females is still cervical cancers & the main reason is poor socioeconomic class - poor personal hygiene leading to HPV virus infection & white discharge – lack of knowledge & lack of facilities in rural India – leading to late detection. In the last 12 years, as a single private institute for cancer, we have developed techniques & facilities for the poor patients making minimally invasive surgeries affordable for all by cost cutting methods & quality assurance along with abiding to oncologic principles – catering to over 20 lakh population covering a distance of 200 sq kms between two major cities of Mumbai & Surat- where the next nearest cancer facilities are available. This presentation shall share the experience of evolution from a basic laparoscopic centre doing benign work to eventually developing a cancer institute & robotic centre in a rural place along with developing a training academy for gynecologists for minimally invasive cancer surgeries – a pure hands-on experience. An experience of over 6000 benign gynecology (fertility enhancing & radical) laparoscopic procedures & 350 plus laparoscopic cancer cases in a single institute in rural India.
Audience Take Away Notes:
This presentation shall discuss the laparoscopic techniques for benign and cancer cases – share the experience of time taken to evolve from benign to cancer surgeries – share the numbers -complications & follow up of the cases and inspire & encourage surgeons to evolve into minimally invasive cancer pelvic surgeries. It will also touch the problems we faced in evolving in a rural place away from cities & inspire young surgeons to settle in rural places & not cities. It will show how a small team can do multiple things in a small place and still give good services with care & ethics. The author is a trainer in gynec endoscopy as well & trained over 600 gynecologists in last 6 years – he is one of the few who gives pure hands-on training to doctors on patients for evolving laparoscopy. This presentation shall encourage people to share their knowledge- be open to sharing & replicating by standardizing the technique & steps inspiring youngsters to start teaching.
