This
may not come as a surprise, but this is yet another blog on cancer. This
article peaked my interest, because my Dad had surgery to remove his kidney due
to his stage 4 kidney cancer. If you have been keeping up with my blogs, you
know that both of my parents are cancer survivors so, there is no sad blogs
here.
In
the UK, kidney or renal cancer is the 8th most common cancer, so a
new method has been hailed a surgery success. This method is using a glowing
dye technique to highlight the healthy part of the kidney as well as the blood
vessels. This allows surgeons to see the entire tumor and enable complete
removal of the tumor through a keyhole surgery. This type of surgery saves as
much healthy kidney tissues as possible. This procedure is only three hours and
is cost effective. The hospital plans on
undertaking more operations using this dying technique.
My
Dad had to have his kidney removed during his procedure, however if doctors in
the US were able to utilize this technique, he may have not lost his kidney. Also,
this procedure allows patients to have a less recovery time. My Dad was in the
hospital for days and was on bed rest for most of his stay. Knowing my Dad, he
would have loved this surgery, so he would be able to quickly, return to his very active life.
Hopefully
this technique will become more of a success in the UK and possibly come to the
United States. If this technique was to
come over to the United States, the questions that come up are, would this be a
surgery someone would consider? Would this risk be lower than a full kidney
removal? Would you take the risk and try this surgery if it meant you could
keep a kidney? In this article, they did not mention any down
falls of this surgery but, there are always risks involved.
Here
is the article if you would like to look into this study:
This is an interesting article Dawn! Being able to remove the tumor without having to remove the entire organ would be very beneficial.
ReplyDeleteI don't personally know if I would use this surgery; I would have to read more about it first. Are there health risks to the dye? How well can an organ recover from having part of it excised? If there is little risk from the dye, this procedure would be beneficial for early onset tumors. If the tumor gets to big, it might be easier to remove the kidney instead of carving out the tumor, leaving the kidney to recover with a missing portion.
Looking at the article the one patient they interviewed, he had no problems at all. I believe it is still too new to know if there are any health harzards. Since they are only taking the tumor off the kindey not taking parts of it off there is no recovery time. It is easier to remove the kideny but they are trying to come up with ways so that the patient does not have to loss a kidney.
DeleteWow! If they could figure out how to remove a tumor in the kidney, without removing the entire kidney, they most likely could remove other tumors from hard to reach areas of the body as well. This would be a BIG discovery. If what I am thinking is correct, I would say it'd be a perfect nominee for the Nobel Prize. I don't quite have an answer for your question at this time, as I would have to be in this situation to make that choice.
ReplyDeleteDoes it say how the dye only highlights healthy cells/blood vessels versus cancerous cells?
ReplyDeleteI don't know what I would do either unless I was in this situation. Some "quick fixes" may not always be the best.
They do not say how is its only highlighting the healthy cells.
DeleteI did not realize the complexity of surgery on the kidney. Even though we have two, I’m sure no one would want to lose either one. Indocyanine Green is a dye that has commonly been used for renal surgeries because it easily passes through the body in a couple of days. I hope once more tests and experimentations are performed, scientists will be able to use the dye for just small pieces of the kidney. Plus the article said it only took three hours long. Now I don’t know how long the surgery originally is but that sounds like a better turnover.
ReplyDeleteMy dad was in surgery for more then 3 hours when he had his kidney removered and days in recover
DeleteSo I think this is a pretty cool development in the treatment of tumors/cancer. Think about those tumors which are not on organs that you can just do without. With this sort of technological advancement, patients would be able to opt for a surgical removal of such tumors, potentially giving their prognosis a more positive outlook.
ReplyDelete