NOTES Surgical Procedure Offers No Scars, Less Pain Dr. David J. Demko, gerontologist and editor, AgeVenture News Service, Boca Raton, Florida 07-24-07

Scarless surgery. That's what New York surgeons performed this Spring. The procedure calls for inserting surgical instruments through the body's orifices (mouth, stomach, vaginal, rectum) rather than the traditional approach of cutting through the skin's surface. Advantages include the absence of exterior scarring and significant reduction in pain because internal organs are relatively free from nerves. The March 2007 procedure inserted surgical instruments through an incision in a woman's vaginal wall to remove her gallbladder. A few weeks later in April 2007, French surgeons accomplished the same surgical procedure. Despite the recent success, there are detractors who argue: the dangers of infection may be enhanced by the NOTES procedure, traditional laparoscopy is safe and minimally invasive, and removing organs via vagina or mouth is not appealing to patients. However, surgeons continue to be intrigued by the many benefits of the NOTES procedure. As a case in point, PROTO (Summer 2007, Charles Slack) reports that a July 2007 NOTES conference has received over 100 research papers describing new research in the field. The health magazine's title, PROTO refers to a prefix of progress, connotes first, novel, experimental. Alone, it conjures up the entire world of the new: discoveries, directions, ideas. In taking PROTO as a name, the magazine stakes its ground on medicine's leading edge, reporting back from the frontiers of research and practice - exploring breakthroughs, dissecting controversies and opening a forum for informed debate. The Summer 2007 issue of PROTO is available at: www.protomag.com

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