Europe's first incisionless procedure for stomach reduction

23 Sept 2010

UK surgeons have performed the first procedure in Europe using USGI's Incisionless Operating Platform to reduce stomach size of obese patients.

 The scar-free procedure is designed to reduce the size of the stomach to help patients feel full after consuming less food.

Surgeons Mr. James Byrne and Mr. Jamie Kelly performed Europe's first POSE procedures on six patients at a private hospital in Southampton last month The patients who underwent the procedure returned to work or normal activities within 2-3 days.

"Given the lack of long-term success patients experience with diets and weight loss drugs, we're very proud to be the first in Europe to offer this incisionless procedure to help overweight and obese patients feel full and eat less," Mr. Jamie Kelly said.

This discreet outpatient procedure should result in less pain, shorter hospitalisation, less risk of infection and no visible scars compared to traditional surgeries performed through the abdomen. Our first patients were back at their jobs without any bandages or signs of surgery within two to three days."

None of the patients experienced any complications other than a slight sore throat. To perform the POSE (Primary Obesity Surgery, Endolumenal) surgery, surgeons pass the USGI IOP down a patient's throat, and use tools to grasp tissue and deploy the company's specially-designed expandable tissue anchors to create multiple tissue folds around the stomach. An endoscope provides visualization.

Another Southampton surgeon Mr. Michael Van den Bossche recently used the IOP and similar techniques to perform ROSE (Repair of Surgery, Endolumenal) in patients who started to regain weight because their stomach pouches and stomas had stretched out since a previous bariatric surgery. Mr.Van den Bossche will also be performing POSE procedures.

"We are proud to be working with leading edge surgeons in Europe to offer Incisionless Surgery to their patients and to pioneer this exciting field," USGI Medical President and Chief Executive Mr. Eugene Chen said. "We look forward to expanding Incisionless Surgery across Europe with our distribution partners. We are on track to have distribution relationships in place in all of the major European markets by 2011."

The devices that make up the IOP received the European CE Mark in March 2010.

 

To top