First ask yourself if it is correct to call it surgery! If a doctor modifies your internal body without making any incision, how do we call it? It seems to be a dream or just a funny joke but it is not so. Surgeons use natural orifices of the body like throat or vagina to do some procedures that otherwise would need at least laparoscopic surgery.
Most of the free-incision procedures are in experimental stage. When they will be approved, most things that we now know about bariatric surgery will change. Surgeons will have to consider other levels of risk, availability, benefits and cost for their patients. Let's see few examples:
Gastric Balloon is an easy to made incision-free procedure. A deflated gastric balloon passes through your mouth and throat and goes into your stomach where it is filled with liquid or with air. It can stay there no more than six months and will reduce the amount of food a person can eat. This procedure is not approved in U.S. but is available in other countries from Europe, South America, in Canada, Australia or Mexico.
Toga Surgery or Transoral Gastroplasty is a new type of incision-free weight loss surgery. Down through your throat, continuing into the stomach, the surgeon will introduce a tool akin to a stapler. At the moment the tool reaches to the right place, the doctor staples a part of the stomach whose function will remain to be accomplished by a small remaining portion, having the size of a thumb. After that, the stapler tool will be removed from your body. This procedure is in an experimental state yet.
StomaphyX is a revision procedure, following the original gastric bypass, that is needed for those persons who, from different reasons, have an enlarged stomach again and its small dimension must be recreated. Statistics say that 15-20 percents of patients who have had gastric bypass will need StomaphyX because they started regaining weight again, due their enlarged stomach.
Transoral Rose is very much similar with StomaphyX. Surgeon will create multiple folds around the stomach to make it smaller. He will use sutures with tissue anchors, placed in the stomach pouch. This way, the amount of food that can be eaten is getting smaller; stomach is slowly emptied, creating the sensation of been full.
Endoluminal Sleeve or EndoBarrier is a sleeve that has the role to line the upper part of the small bowel. The duodenum and the first part of jejunum will be mechanically bypassed. This procedure is made via mouth and throat. The first statistics about it say that it might help reverse diabetes.
