The Pakistan Kidney & Liver Institute (PKLI) and Research Centre’s surgeons successfully performed the first radical cystectomy with artificial bladder construction from a patient’s intestines for advanced bladder cancer treatment.
According to details, a 70-year-old retired teacher from Lahore showed up at PKLI’s doors with bladder cancer. The patient had undergone various treatments before coming to PKLI, but there were no signs of recovery for him.
A highly trained team of surgeons led by veteran Professor Dr Saeed Akhtar, anesthesiologists, well-trained technicians and nurses conducted this surgery, backed by highly trained Intensive Care Unit doctors and staff to treat the patient with invasive bladder cancer, in which the cancer cells had spread into the muscles of the bladder wall.
The highly qualified team removed the patient’s entire bladder; part of the ureters, the thin tubes that connect the bladder to the kidneys; and the lymph nodes that surround the bladder, major blood vessels in pelvis, aorta and IVC to get rid of the tumour completely.
After this, the bladder was reconstructed from patient’s own intestines. The expertise and equipment required to perform such an operation is not available in most of the hospitals in the country, as very few centres perform such highly specialised surgeries in Pakistan. PKLI has the full competence and expertise to perform such surgeries and the provision of this kind of complex surgeries is the main objective of PKLI’s mission.
Published in Daily Times, August 20th 2018.