A new technology was adopted in a Shanghai hospital recently, enabling some gastric cancer patients to have a tumor removed without cutting open the stomach.
Equipped with a gastroscope measuring 1.5 centimeters in diameter and in it a scissors-like clamp and an electric knife capable of coagulating blood, doctors in the Ruijin Hospital can directly cut off cancerous tissues, which reduced to a great extent patient suffering.
Most gastric cancer patients have to have four-fifths of their stomach cut, which almost definitely, in the past, involved cutting open the abdomen. As a result, it usually causes heavy bleeding in the operation and takes three weeks after the surgery before the patients start to get better.
The technology, in contrast, minimizes the cutting and shortens the time for recovery.
However, doctors said that such technology is ideal only for patients whose cancerous tissue is less than 3 to 5 centimeters in size and less than 2 millimeters thick.
(People's Daily 03/11/2001)
