Partial nephrectomy performed by Dr. Ali Sarram | by Debra Melani

Posted on Thu, Jan 31, 2013

Dr. Sarram of Advanced Urology, metro Denver performs the Partial nephrectomy at Sky Ridge Medical Center & The Medical Center of Aurora

Partial nephrectomy: Only tumors and cancerous tissues are removed from a kidney, rather than the entire organ, preserving function (something detection and surgical advancements have allowed only in recent years).

Of note: By using da Vinci during partial nephrectomies (which Dr. Sarram was the first to do for HealthONE in 2005), surgeons maintain much more healthy kidney for patients, which can improve lives.

Benefits: Open nephrectomies are painful, requiring large incisions, and traditional laparoscopic surgery is difficult and takes longer, which can be more damaging to healthy kidney tissue. With its Firefly™ florescence injectable dyes, the robotic system allows surgeons to accurately view blood flow and diseased tissue areas, resulting in less blood loss, quicker recovery and preserved kidney function.

da Vinci® Robotic System

Since 2002, when HealthONE hospitals became the first in the Rocky Mountain Region to introduce the da Vinci® Robotic System into the operating room, thousands of patients have benefited from the most-advanced laparoscopic surgery available today. Although the four-armed surgical robot never fulfilled its original intent — providing remote battlefield surgery for the Army in the late 1980s — it has done everything from removing cancerous prostates and kidneys to repairing heart valves and prolapsed uteruses, all while putting patients back on their feet more quickly than traditional surgeries. HealthONE continues to lead the Denver area into the robotic era, with the recent debut in bariatric, as well as colorectal, surgeries.

Although surgeons are still in control with da Vinci®, they sit at a console a few feet away from the patient, peering through a high-definition, 3-D, viewing system. Looking more like a teen playing a video game than a doctor performing surgery, the surgeon uses hand controls to manipulate the robotic arms, which are inserted strategically in the patient through small (less than half inch) incisions and mimic the surgeon’s motions, but on a much more minute scale. Superb range-of-motion, coupled with a magnified vision system that surgeons say gives the illusion of being inside the patient, can lead to excellent outcomes with less risk of blood loss, infections, scarring and other serious complications.

Learn more: https://advancedurologypc.com/

Call for an appointment:  303-695-6106

Tags: Advanced urology, Dr. Ali Sarram, Partial nephrectomy