History made by Springs woman
Springs resident Chantelle Gouws (29) became the first person in South Africa to undergo a partial nephrectomy (kidney removal) using the da Vinci robotic-assisted technology.
She also became the first woman to undergo a procedure using the da Vinci robotic surgical system in South Africa.
The operation was done at the Netcare Waterfall City Hospital in Midrand, Johannesburg on Thurday.
Shortly before the operation Gouws said she had initially been nervous as she did not know what was wrong with her.
However, going into surgery she commented: “I am not nervous at all as I have a really good doctor and was quite surprised when I found out my procedure would be a double first.”
She was amazed to know that medical technology has progressed so much and said “I’m now very calm and comfortable about the procedure because I know the urologist Dr Marius Conradie will remove all of the tumour accurately.”
According to Conradie doing a partial nephrectomy was an extremely intricate and exacting procedure.
“There’s a number of blood vessels involved in the reconstruction of the urinary tract.
Any mistake and the patient could bleed to death on the operating table,” he says.
A statement received from the hospital states Gouws’ tumour was diagnosed after an ovarian cyst burst about two months ago while she was at work.
The cyst had gone undetected, as she had not been seeing her gynaecologist regularly.
During an ultrasound examination by her gynaecologist the golf ball-sized mass in her right kidney was incidentally discovered.
Urologists have been using the highly sophisticated technology, which was installed at the Midrand Hospital and at Netcare Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital in Cape Town, to operate on men, mainly for the surgical removal of the prostate gland.
Controlled by the surgeon at the console, the robotic arms do the cutting, clamping and cauterising with far greater flexibility and precision than is possible with human hands.
Unlike traditional surgery, da Vinci robotic-assisted procedures are minimally invasive where the instruments are inserted through small incisions.
“With this technology we can view the magnified organs, blood vessels and surrounding tissue in 3D, so that the surgery can be performed much more accurately,” said Conradie.
During the surgery Conradie used an ultrasound probe to determine the extent of the tumour, to make sure they removed all of it.
It was an ‘angry red thing’, about 4cm long, on top of the kidney, which he successfully excised.
“The operation went extremely well,” Conradie said afterwards.
Conradie said the success rate of da Vinci procedures was much higher and recovery time much shorter compared to traditional surgery.
The procedure itself was also faster.
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