Abdominal Surgical Procedures Without Skin Incisions

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared an application for marketing the Natural Orifice Linear Cutter (NOLC), which enables surgeons to perform procedures through the gastrointestinal tract (GI) without cutting or puncturing the skin of the abdominal wall.

The NOLC should help advance laparoscopic surgery, as well as the emerging Natural Orifice Translumenal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES) field. NOTES has been previously limited by the lack of small, precise, remotely controllable devices, which can effectively and predictably close internal incisions.”The NOLC is a device that will enable surgeons to advance laparoscopic surgery and NOTES to improve patient outcomes by reducing the pain, recovery time and risk of wound infection associated with traditional surgical procedures,” stated Ninh Nguyen, M.D., chief of the Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center. “The NOLC allows us to maneuver through the GI tract, turn corners and close internal wounds with precisely-fired staples — all without making an incision in the patient’s abdomen. The NOLC is an essential surgical device for NOTES, as the older devices we use to close internal incisions are too bulky and do not allow access through the body’s natural orifices.”PMI’s NOLC combines a 12mm-wide surgical stapling device with a flexible shaft. Powered digital controls within the NOLC give the surgeon precise command of the stapling instrument at the end of the shaft, acting like a tiny robot to do remotely what surgeons have done previously with sutures and manual staplers.Michael Whitman, president, chief executive, and founder of Power Medical Interventions says;”We expect the NOLC to have a positive impact on surgical practice in many procedures, including high-risk bariatric or ‘weight loss’ surgery where the ability to partition or ‘shrink’ the size of the stomach without incisions should reduce the rate of infection, pain, scarring and recovery time for many patients.”(Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) : February 2007.)