Minimally invasive surgery usually results in quicker healing and less scarring. Because the procedures are performed through small incisions, patients experience smaller scars and quicker recoveries.
Additionally, using advanced robotic systems can give doctors greater control and vision during surgery, allowing them to perform safe, less invasive, and precise surgical procedures for colon and rectal cancers.
In this segment, Dr. Festus Dada, general and colorectal surgeon and member of the Medical Staff at Corona Regional Medical Center, discusses the advantages of minimally invasive surgery for colon and rectal cancers.
Selected Podcast
Minimally Invasive Surgery for Colon and Rectal Cancers.
Featured Speaker:
Festus Dada, MD
Festus Dada, MD is a General Surgeon and a member of the medical staff at Corona Regional Medical Center. Transcription:
Minimally Invasive Surgery for Colon and Rectal Cancers.
Melanie Cole (Host): Minimally invasive surgery can usually result in quicker healing and less scarring. Advanced robotic systems give doctors greater control and vision during surgery, allowing them to perform safe, less invasive and precise surgical procedures for colon and rectal cancers. My guest today is Dr. Festus Dada. He's a general and colorectal surgeon and a member of the medical staff at Corona Regional Medical Center. Welcome to the show, Dr. Dada. Tell us what's going on in the world of minimally invasive and robotic surgery for colon and rectal issues.
Dr. Festus Dada (Guest): The new and better improvements of patient outcomes. The patients who are candidates of this approach, it provides shorter hospital stays, less pain and, therefore, faster recovery in an operative procedure.
Melanie Cole: People hear the words “endoscopic”, “laparoscopic robotic surgery”. Explain a little bit about the laparoscopic surgery for colon cancer. What's involved, Dr. Dada?
Dr. Dada: Usually the candidate for laparoscopic procedure for colon cancer will be a patient who is undergoing an elective procedure, in most cases. It's rarely used for emergency operations. Therefore, the patient has the benefit of having their colon prepped or cleaned out at home or in the hospital before entering the operating room. In this procedure usually we will put trocars or port sites in the abdomen in about three or four locations. The whole operation is done on a TV screen with surgical assistant doing the operation on digital television screens. In most cases, it cuts the hospital days by half. Most patients report minimal pain after this procedure as opposed to the traditional long abdominal incisions that have been used for years.
Melanie Cole: Are there some people that are not candidates for these types of minimally invasive procedures?
Dr. Dada: Yes. The first set of people that come to mind are usually patients who've had multiple abdominal operations; therefore, there is a tremendous amount of scarring. Most surgeons select this kind of operations on the case by case basis depending on how many previous operations they've had; how extensive is the abdominal scarring of this patient. Patients who have virgin bellies, who've never had an abdominal operation or whose previous abdominal operations were similar to like laparoscopic operation, such as gastric bypass or gallbladder or anti-reflux operation for heart burn, those people can still have laparoscopic colon operation if they don't have too much scarring and, in those cases, we usually take an extra step to approach insufflating in the abdomen in preparation for the colon operation.
Melanie Cole: Dr. Dada, as you're seeing more colonoscopies which are increasing the detection of smaller colon tumors, are these more easy for you doctors to remove laparoscopically? Are you seeing a difference because of the incidence of colonoscopies?
Dr. Dada: No doubt. Patients with very poor key tumor which have been there for a considerable length of time before they come to the surgery are usually the ones that will fail laparoscopic approach because of the prevalence of early screening from colonoscopy, like you mentioned. Yes, if the diagnosis is made earlier, more patients come into screening for colon cancer. Sometimes they are benign, smaller tumors that have not created a lot of inflammation around the tumor and on top of the organs are much easier to remove laparoscopically than poor key tumors with extensive spread throughout the area of tumor or elsewhere.
Melanie Cole: People hear the words “colon cancer” and “rectal cancer” which really can be a scary diagnosis? Is there a difference when you're using laparoscopic minimally invasive surgeries for rectal cancer versus colon cancer because of the location of the rectum it's more in the bony pelvis. Speak about that for a minute.
Dr. Dada: That is an excellent question. From the technical point of view, there are minor differences. For the colon, every aspect of the colon is accessible for a laparoscopic surgery. For the rectum, we divide the rectum into three segments. The top two segments are usually easily approached laparoscopically. It is generally accepted by colorectal surgeons that tumors that are located in the lower rectum--that is, in most cases, tumors which you can feel with your fingers on physically exams--are much more difficult to address laproscopically. Therefore, most rectal tumors in the upper half can be handled as colon cancer patients are handled. Technically, it's much more demanding to operate in the pelvis than in the abdomen because of the confinement of the bony pelvis, like you mentioned. Furthermore, in men whose pelvis is designed not to accommodate a fetal head or childbirth, the pelvis is much, much narrower than the woman's pelvis which is a wider, easily accessible, and the vision of the surgeon during the operation on a woman's pelvis is superior to that of a man because of that anatomical design.
Melanie Cole: What an interesting point, Dr. Dada. In just the last few minutes, what would you like people to know if they have to consider surgery for colon and rectal cancers about minimally invasive procedures?
Dr. Dada: Well, I believe that at this point in 2017, it should be the first option, laparoscopic or robotic for tumors that can be handled with minimal invasive surgery for the reasons that I mentioned earlier. It provides clear benefit to the patients. After all, it's all about the patient, because the hospital is two to four days for laparoscopic and robotic surgery. The colon operation stay is normally a week for a colon operation. The degree of pain is much less. Apart from that, we are seeing patients who are much younger who are in coming in for surgery of colon and rectal operations. Therefore, this segment of the population is still in their productive years and the fact that the recovery is faster means that they can go back to their productive activities in a very short time.
Melanie Cole: Why should they come to Corona Regional Medical Center for their care?
Dr. Dada: The hospital offers all the necessary facility equipment to ensure that the patient gets the best care. In our practice, everything we discussed, we put into practice. Patients coming in for colorectal surgery who are carefully selected and the candidate with no contraindication for the laparoscopic surgery are operated on in this fashion. The results in Corona so far have been outstanding where all the benefits that I referred to are documented: faster return to work, quicker recovery, shorter hospital stay and less pain.
Melanie Cole: Thank you so much, Dr. Dada for being with us today. You're listening to Corona Regional Radio with Corona Regional Medical Center. For more information you can go to www.coronaregional.com. That's www.coronaregional.com. Physicians or independent practitioners who are not employees or agents of Corona Regional Medical Center, the hospital shall not be liable for actions or treatments provided by physicians. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
Minimally Invasive Surgery for Colon and Rectal Cancers.
Melanie Cole (Host): Minimally invasive surgery can usually result in quicker healing and less scarring. Advanced robotic systems give doctors greater control and vision during surgery, allowing them to perform safe, less invasive and precise surgical procedures for colon and rectal cancers. My guest today is Dr. Festus Dada. He's a general and colorectal surgeon and a member of the medical staff at Corona Regional Medical Center. Welcome to the show, Dr. Dada. Tell us what's going on in the world of minimally invasive and robotic surgery for colon and rectal issues.
Dr. Festus Dada (Guest): The new and better improvements of patient outcomes. The patients who are candidates of this approach, it provides shorter hospital stays, less pain and, therefore, faster recovery in an operative procedure.
Melanie Cole: People hear the words “endoscopic”, “laparoscopic robotic surgery”. Explain a little bit about the laparoscopic surgery for colon cancer. What's involved, Dr. Dada?
Dr. Dada: Usually the candidate for laparoscopic procedure for colon cancer will be a patient who is undergoing an elective procedure, in most cases. It's rarely used for emergency operations. Therefore, the patient has the benefit of having their colon prepped or cleaned out at home or in the hospital before entering the operating room. In this procedure usually we will put trocars or port sites in the abdomen in about three or four locations. The whole operation is done on a TV screen with surgical assistant doing the operation on digital television screens. In most cases, it cuts the hospital days by half. Most patients report minimal pain after this procedure as opposed to the traditional long abdominal incisions that have been used for years.
Melanie Cole: Are there some people that are not candidates for these types of minimally invasive procedures?
Dr. Dada: Yes. The first set of people that come to mind are usually patients who've had multiple abdominal operations; therefore, there is a tremendous amount of scarring. Most surgeons select this kind of operations on the case by case basis depending on how many previous operations they've had; how extensive is the abdominal scarring of this patient. Patients who have virgin bellies, who've never had an abdominal operation or whose previous abdominal operations were similar to like laparoscopic operation, such as gastric bypass or gallbladder or anti-reflux operation for heart burn, those people can still have laparoscopic colon operation if they don't have too much scarring and, in those cases, we usually take an extra step to approach insufflating in the abdomen in preparation for the colon operation.
Melanie Cole: Dr. Dada, as you're seeing more colonoscopies which are increasing the detection of smaller colon tumors, are these more easy for you doctors to remove laparoscopically? Are you seeing a difference because of the incidence of colonoscopies?
Dr. Dada: No doubt. Patients with very poor key tumor which have been there for a considerable length of time before they come to the surgery are usually the ones that will fail laparoscopic approach because of the prevalence of early screening from colonoscopy, like you mentioned. Yes, if the diagnosis is made earlier, more patients come into screening for colon cancer. Sometimes they are benign, smaller tumors that have not created a lot of inflammation around the tumor and on top of the organs are much easier to remove laparoscopically than poor key tumors with extensive spread throughout the area of tumor or elsewhere.
Melanie Cole: People hear the words “colon cancer” and “rectal cancer” which really can be a scary diagnosis? Is there a difference when you're using laparoscopic minimally invasive surgeries for rectal cancer versus colon cancer because of the location of the rectum it's more in the bony pelvis. Speak about that for a minute.
Dr. Dada: That is an excellent question. From the technical point of view, there are minor differences. For the colon, every aspect of the colon is accessible for a laparoscopic surgery. For the rectum, we divide the rectum into three segments. The top two segments are usually easily approached laparoscopically. It is generally accepted by colorectal surgeons that tumors that are located in the lower rectum--that is, in most cases, tumors which you can feel with your fingers on physically exams--are much more difficult to address laproscopically. Therefore, most rectal tumors in the upper half can be handled as colon cancer patients are handled. Technically, it's much more demanding to operate in the pelvis than in the abdomen because of the confinement of the bony pelvis, like you mentioned. Furthermore, in men whose pelvis is designed not to accommodate a fetal head or childbirth, the pelvis is much, much narrower than the woman's pelvis which is a wider, easily accessible, and the vision of the surgeon during the operation on a woman's pelvis is superior to that of a man because of that anatomical design.
Melanie Cole: What an interesting point, Dr. Dada. In just the last few minutes, what would you like people to know if they have to consider surgery for colon and rectal cancers about minimally invasive procedures?
Dr. Dada: Well, I believe that at this point in 2017, it should be the first option, laparoscopic or robotic for tumors that can be handled with minimal invasive surgery for the reasons that I mentioned earlier. It provides clear benefit to the patients. After all, it's all about the patient, because the hospital is two to four days for laparoscopic and robotic surgery. The colon operation stay is normally a week for a colon operation. The degree of pain is much less. Apart from that, we are seeing patients who are much younger who are in coming in for surgery of colon and rectal operations. Therefore, this segment of the population is still in their productive years and the fact that the recovery is faster means that they can go back to their productive activities in a very short time.
Melanie Cole: Why should they come to Corona Regional Medical Center for their care?
Dr. Dada: The hospital offers all the necessary facility equipment to ensure that the patient gets the best care. In our practice, everything we discussed, we put into practice. Patients coming in for colorectal surgery who are carefully selected and the candidate with no contraindication for the laparoscopic surgery are operated on in this fashion. The results in Corona so far have been outstanding where all the benefits that I referred to are documented: faster return to work, quicker recovery, shorter hospital stay and less pain.
Melanie Cole: Thank you so much, Dr. Dada for being with us today. You're listening to Corona Regional Radio with Corona Regional Medical Center. For more information you can go to www.coronaregional.com. That's www.coronaregional.com. Physicians or independent practitioners who are not employees or agents of Corona Regional Medical Center, the hospital shall not be liable for actions or treatments provided by physicians. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.