A team led by assistant professor Dr. Colleen McDermott performed the first vNOTES (standing for Vaginal Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery) at Mount Sinai Hospital.
McDermott's team — which included urogynaecology fellow Dr. Yasir Bukhari, resident Dr. Corey Sermer, and nurses Rosario Cojuangco and Ashley Sari — performed a bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy through this approach.
"The indication was a patient with significant prolapse and stress urinary incontinence for whom we were doing a pelvic reconstruction and midurethral sling," McDermott said.
"Unfortunately, she also had a diagnosis of Lynch syndrome and therefore required a BSO. Instead of doing a second transabdominal approach we elected to try this minimally invasive way of completely removing the bilateral tubes and ovaries from a vaginal approach.
"Apparently we are the first to perform this procedure in Ontario!"