Quote of the day in THIS article!

WashPost - Scarless Surgery Uses Body's Own Openings

When Albert Pagliuca got gallstones, his surgeon offered to remove his gallbladder with a new operation designed to hurt less, get him back to work more quickly and leave no visible scars. But there was one catch: Doctors would pull the organ out through his mouth.

"I kept thinking, 'What if it gets stuck in my windpipe?' " said Pagliuca, 45, who lives outside Chicago. " 'What if I choke on it?' "
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The approach, called NOTES -- for natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery -- seeks to move beyond arthroscopic and laparoscopic techniques, which for many procedures replaced large incisions with several small ones, shortening hospital stays and recovery time, reducing pain and risks, and leaving much smaller scars.

More recently, surgeons realized they could enter the body through natural openings with flexible endoscopes, which are routinely used for diagnostic purposes such as colon cancer screening. After experimenting for years on pigs and human cadavers, a team in India announced in 2005 the first successful procedure in humans.
And the quote....
The technique has been used mostly to remove gallbladders through the mouth or the vagina. But a few patients have had appendectomies, and doctors are experimenting with stomach surgery for obesity and other conditions.