BOSTON, MA – A major breakthrough took place today as a general surgeon at the Massachusetts Generalizable Hospital performed and successfully completed the world’s first open laparoscopy.
“Today is a milestone day for the field of general surgery,” explained pioneering general surgeon, Dr. Jens Norlin, who performed the open laparoscopic appendectomy. “One of the great challenges in laparoscopic surgery is correctly identifying the optimal locations for the trocars, but it’s hard to assess that blindly from outside the abdominal cavity. By creating a large abdominal incision we can appropriately judge the placement of the trocars to carry on the laparoscopic surgery in question with as little invasiveness as possible.”
According to Norlin, he came up with the idea during a case in October 2018 where he converted a laparoscopic procedure into an exploratory laparotomy.
“I wondered if anyone had ever taken advantage of an open abdomen to help guide laparoscopy,” Norlin told Gomerblog, still riding the high of the momentous occasion. “To have a second set of eyes and hands peak into the open abdomen and double-check your work seemed like a no-brainer. It was an epiphany, and I couldn’t believe no had ever thought about it before.”
Norlin extensively searched the literature and was surprised to find absolutely zero studies or cases about open laparoscopy. The rest, as they say, is history.
Norlin’s patient is doing extremely well in PACU, even telling Norlin that “other than the huge midline scar, you can barely tell anyone went in there. Thank you.”
