A team at Hamad Medical Corporation’s Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery Center conducted a remarkably successful robotic sleeve gastrectomy surgery for a middle-aged woman with a rare condition.
The surgery was performed on a 30-year-old woman with Situs inversus totalis - a rare congenital abnormality characterized by a mirror-image transposition of both the abdominal and the thoracic organs. The surgery is considered arguably the first of its kind in the world, said Consultant of Metabolic, Bariatric, and Robotic Surgery at HMC, Dr. Jassim Fakhro while addressing the media yesterday.
“On February 6 we performed a sleeve gastrectomy surgery for a very rare case, where the patient has congenital condition Situs inversus totalis in which the major visceral organs are reversed or mirrored from their normal positions. It is very rare and happens only one in 10,000 people,” he said.
“This is the first robot-assisted sleeve gastrectomy surgery to be done on a patient with such a condition, according to published research. The patient is doing well and has been discharged from the hospital,” said Dr. Fakhro who performed the surgery along with a team from the Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery Center.
Dr. Fakhro said that the patient is leading a normal life and she had to undergo the surgery as she met the criteria for a bariatric surgery.
“She was having some problems related to obesity and surgical treatment was necessary for her. So she can live a normal life without any complications related to obesity,” said Dr. Fakhro.
“As she informed us about the congenital abnormality, we did all required investigations to make sure that everything is in the right order and to conduct the surgery with the least possible complications,” he added.
Dr. Fakhro that the patient will not need any additional care but will go through the stranded follow-up checks for three years – which is common for anyone who undergoes bariatric surgery.
According to Dr. Fakhro although there are no obvious abnormalities in the function of transposed organs, anatomical irregularity causes important technical difficulties in the surgical procedure of the patient.
“Most of the surgeons are right-handed and the right hand is the dominant hand. But in cases such as the patient we operated on; everything is the opposite hand. So everything which you used to do with your dominant hand now the left hand has to be the dominant hand. We used the robot because it can avoid any tumors in the hand the 3D vision helps in performing the surgery,” he said.
Bariatric surgery, or weight-loss surgery, provides a long-lasting weight-loss solution for obese patients. The surgery, whether it would be a gastric bypass or gastric sleeve, makes changes to the stomach and digestive system that limits the amount of food that can be eaten and how many nutrients can be absorbed.
Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery Center are one of the largest centers specializing in obesity treatment and bariatric surgery in the world, as it has steadily continued to expand since 2011 to provide integrated, evidence-based medical services at the highest international standards.
“At HMC bariatric surgeries are performed at Hamad General Hospital and the Al Wakra Hospital. We have performed more than 10,000 surgeries since 2011; among that in 2022 we conducted 703 surgeries. Robotic surgeries were introduced in 2012 and since then 135 surgeries were performed,” said Dr. Fakhro. According to Dr. Fakhro HMC follows National Guidelines for bariatric surgery and a protocol equal to international standards for bariatric surgeries.
