Surgeons remove, reinsert multiple organs in patient with cancerous tumor

The CBS Evening News (3/24, story 10, 2:00, Smith) reported on "a ground breaking 15-hour surgery" performed by Dr. Tomoaki Kato and a team at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center. The physicians operated on a cancer patient’s "abdomen like the hood of a car and took out the entire engine, her stomach, pancreas, liver, spleen, large and small intestines and kidneys." Once removed, "[t]he organs were chilled while surgeons detangled the tumor from" the woman’s aorta. After the tumor was gone, "the organs, connected to Gor-Tex blood vessels, went back in."

According to the Miami Herald (3/24, Tasker), the organs were placed "in a steel pan cooled to four degrees Celsius, and kept…there for nearly two hours while" the team took out "the now-reachable tumor." The surgery "is believed to be the first of its kind."

Discussing the logistics of the surgery, Reuters (3/25, Brown) quotes Dr. Kato as saying, "There’s nothing really simple here." Kato continues, "I don’t want to say acrobatic but it’s kind of, in a way," because "[i]t’s a very tricky operation." HealthDay (3/24, Reinberg) and WebMD (3/24, Mann) also covered the story.