belly button leaves – London: In a surgical feat, doctors have operated on a woman in what they claim is the first hysterectomy in Europe by making a small incision in the belly button, leaving no visible external scars. The technique, known as single incision laparoscopic surgery, is the latest development in keyhole surgery, where instruments including a tiny camera are inserted through the navel and the surgeon maneuvers the inside using a TV monitor. Surgeon Thomas Ind, who led the team that performed the hysterectomy.

A woman named Debbie Price described the surgical removal of the uterus as an extension of what was already being done with keyhole methods. Instead of drilling three or four holes for the instruments, we drill just one hole.

Patients like the idea of ​​not having three or four little scars on their stomach, he said. Price, 46, decided to have the operation after suffering for years from adenomyosis – a painful condition where the lining of the uterus grows into the uterine muscle.