Gallbladder removed through mouth, vagina
This is a returning story for "Body Talk." We heard about Dr. Lee Swanstrom of Oregon about a month ago, but USA Today finds a patient willing to chat about having her gallbladder removed through her mouth. The result is a sore tongue, but there's a lot of talk (so to speak), of reevaluating the way the gallbladder is removed. There are about 500,000 gallbladder operations annually in the United States.
From the story:
Lynn Masterson hurt in a most unusual place after gallbladder surgery June 16."I had actually had more pain and decreased mobility with my tongue," says Masterson, 47, a radio station traffic reporter.
That's because her surgeon pulled her gallbladder out through her mouth.
She was Lee Swanstrom's third through-the-mouth patient. Swanstrom, of the Oregon Clinic, performs the operation at Portland's Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital.
Friends and family were shocked to learn the route Masterson's gallbladder took from her body. A co-worker joked that he had wondered why her breath smelled funny after surgery.
The thought of having the gallbladder extracted through the mouth or, in women, the vagina, is enough to send some patients fleeing. But by eliminating an external incision, proponents say, the approach promises to reduce pain and speed recovery.