Caritas Norwood Hospital surgeon Peter Lydon has a simple theory for successful surgeries: the fewer cuts, the better.
Lydon, a Norwood native, recently performed what hospital officials believe to be the first single-incision gallbladder removal surgery in a Massachusetts community hospital. The procedure is done through the navel and does not leave any visible scars.
Lydon has been doing laparoscopic surgeries - in which doctors insert a video camera into the patient and use specialized instruments to perform the procedures - since the early 1990s. In a traditional laparoscopic procedure, doctors make four "keyhole" incisions into which various instruments and the camera can be inserted. But Lydon was recently trained in Florida to perform single-incision procedures.
The single incision is made possible by flexible instruments and better high definition video cameras. The benefits to the patient are numerous and include reduced bleeding, reduced risk of infection, less pain and scarring and quicker recovery time.
"You're making fewer holes and cutting less muscle," said Lydon.
Patients are also able to get up and around quicker, which reduces the risk of blood clots and allows them to get out of the hospital and back to work faster.
"Most will be able to go home the same day," said Lydon.
Although Lydon said the single-incision operations cannot be performed on everybody, he believes it will become more and more common in the coming years as technology develops and more doctors get the specialized training.
Lydon also believes it will be community hospitals such as Norwood leading the way, especially for gallbladder procedures.
"It hasn't really picked up yet in community hospitals because of the expertise needed and the training," said Lydon.
But Lydon believes it will become very popular and alleviate the need for patients to go into Boston for gallbladder surgery.
"People may go into Mass General for heart surgery, but gallbladders are really what community hospitals do - we have more expertise," said Lydon. "We do about 300 a year, so it's very common, and we want to be able to offer patients the latest technology and procedures available."
"We are very proud of Dr. Lydon and our surgeons," said hospital President Margaret Hanson. "Their commitment to providing the most advanced surgical techniques means that patients can get care in their local communities."
With better instruments, Lydon believes more and more surgeries will be done through a single incision within the next five years. This spring, Lydon anticipates the release of a device that will make it easier to perform single-incision surgeries because it will provide separate conduits for each instrument to better avoid what Lydon calls "sword-fighting" when three or four devices are being inserted in the same hole.
Lydon said he is very selective on which patients would be right for the procedure, saying certain surgeries, especially if the gallbladder is gangrenous or may burst, are better off done with more traditional surgery. But he said some people may only need one other incision, as opposed to the four in the traditional laparoscopic surgeries, and the fewer cuts, the better.
Daily News staff writer Brian Falla can be reached at 781-433-8339 or at bfalla@cnc.com.
