A programme of  low invasive pancreatic and liver cancer surgery is successfully being operationalised in Clinical Ward of General, Transplantation and Gastroenterological Surgery and Surgical Oncology in Norbert Barlicki University Hospital in Lodz.

Over two years ago a team including Prof. Piotr Hogendorf, Prof. Adam Durczyński and Oliwia Grząsiak MD performed the first innovative laparoscopic liver surgery. Since then the centre has performed dozens of minimally invasive liver resections and has dynamically been developing new laparoscopic techniques.

In June the team of surgeons:  Piotr Hogendorf, Adam Durczyński and Aleksander Wardęszkiewicz performed a laparoscopic resection of 5.5-cm tumour in liver segment I.

‘We applied our own, innovative method of haemostasis. The patient was discharged home in a good general condition on post-surgery day 3, which emphasizes the impact of miniinvasive techniques on the rate of recovery. The surgery was filmed and the footage has been qualified for presentation in a prestigious Videosurgery session at the 70th Congress of the Association of Polish Surgeons held in September in Torun’, says Prof. Piotr Hogendrof

The Department of General and Transplantation Surgery is one of seven departments in Poland (along with the departments in Cracow, Warsaw, Bydgoszcz, Lublin and Bialystok) that takes part in Polish Registry of Laparoscopic Liver Resections. The cooperation has already resulted in, among others, two scientific papers which included over 300 liver resection surgeries in Polish patients. The fruits of the work were presented at the 3rd World Congress of International Laparoscopic Liver Society (12-13 June 2021).

Barlicki Hospital is also engaged in a dynamic programme of laparoscopic pancreatic resections which was launched over a dozen years ago. It is noteworthy that the first laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy in Poland was performed exactly in the same centre by Prof. Janusz Strzelczyk and  Witold Olejniczak MD. Laparoscopy in pancreatic surgery has become a technique consistently used in pancreas cancer treatment since.

‘We perform an increasingly complicated and extensive resections. What inspires us to further scientific and surgical development of our centre is our collaboration with the Department of Surgery of the University in Heidelberg, one of the top centres of pancreatic surgery worldwide. We are also involved in the international register of pancreatic surgery within the framework of PANCREAS GROUP’, adds Prof. Hogendorf.

For several years the Department has been conducting scientific research into new pancreatic cancer markers, whose outcomes were published in such prestigious journals as Pancreas, Pancreatology, Cancer Biomarkers.

On 8 July, 2021, a state-of-the-art surgical robot was presented in Barlicki Hospital. The innovative solution can be applied in further development of miniinvasive surgery performed in Lodz. The robot does not replace the surgeon, yet it supports the specialist in high-precision movements in highly-complicated procedures.

‘By means of the robot we have an opportunity to prepare the tissues even more precisely using three-dimensional imaging.  The new kind of robot laparoscopy  was initially used mainly in urological surgery; currently, it is developing rapidly worldwide primarily in surgical and gynaecological procedures. The robot can also be used to retrieve a kidney from a live donor in a very precise and comfortable manner for the operator in the transplantation procedure’, underlies Prof. Adam Durczyński.

The retrieval of the kidney by means of low invasive techniques leads to a faster recovery of the donor without damage to the transplant organ. Such procedures have already become a standard in the world. A kidney transplantation programme, including transplants from live donors, has successfully been functioning in the Department for over 25 years. Alas, the number of transplants from live donors in our country is still unsatisfactory, thus, any additional argument for the living-donor transplants that contributes to its promotion is extremely valuable.