UC San Diego Medical Center first to remove appendix by mouth

On March 12, surgeons at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), Medical Center performed what is believed to be the first removal of a diseased appendix through the mouth in the United States.

The UCSD Medical Center is the first US hospital to perform this type of natural office transluminal endoscopic surgery. India is the only other country to report such an operation.

One of the surgeons who performed the procedure said that only one small incision to insert a small camera in the belly button was required to complete the surgery versus three incisions required for laparoscopic procedure. The patient was discharged 20 hours after the surgery and is now reporting minimal pain, which is the goal for all of their patients.

Professor and director of the UCSD Center for the Future of Surgery, performed the surgery on a 42-year-old California resident with the professor and chair of the Department of Surgery at the UCSD Medical Center and president-elect of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons passed the FDA-cleared EndoSurgical Operating System (USGI Medical, Inc.) through the patient’s mouth and into the stomach, where a small incision was made in the wall to pass the instrument through to the appendix for removal. The procedure was performed as part of a clinical trial that has been reviewed and approved for a limited number of patients by the UCSD Institutional Review Board.

The patient was pleased with the results, and the operation met his expectations. The patient said that he had to have his appendix removed, and the opportunity to participate in something so innovative sounded enticing. A day after the surgery, he has little pain, a ‘2’ on a scale of 1 to 10. His father has the conventional appendix removal. He didn’t want the standard tissue scar on the abdomen.