The new frontiers of minimally invasive surgery …
Latest generation technologies and high-specialty services and assistance complexities: these are the distinctive features of the San Michele Nursing Home, an excellence in the national healthcare scene. In addition, sixty years of life, the health structure of Maddaloni has invested heavily in technological innovation, becoming one of the most virtuous centers in Italy, thanks to the modern diagnostic equipment and the high skills of a high-level medical staff, involved in interventions increasingly minimally invasive. It is no coincidence that the President, Dr. Crescenzo Barletta, focuses on the promotion and management of increasingly high-complexity care services, within specific operational realities, making the centrality of the person the founding value of the Clinic.
Dr. Barletta, in recent years minimally invasive surgery has been applied with excellent clinical results in all medical branches. What goals have you achieved in the cardiac surgery field?
The line drawn in recent years is to practice in a routine way the mini-invasive techniques, which through small cuts compared to the complete opening of the sternal bone, allow to perform aortocoronary by-pass, replacements and repairs of the heart valves, removal of heart tumors, repair of congenital defects, aneurysms of the aorta and treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. This type of approach allows to reduce the surgical traumatism allowing a rapid postoperative recovery, the reduction of pain and some complications related to the intervention such as infections and the need for transfusion, and to be able to operate patients who were previously condemned to die without treatment. The project was made possible by the collaboration of expert tutors, all prominent figures in mini-invasive cardiac surgery.
Beyond the cutting-edge techniques, are technological innovations also the basis of such flattering results?
The most advanced quality standards can only be achieved with an efficient and constantly evolving health organization combined with investments in high technology. On 26 October 2015, in the presence of Governor De Luca, the first hybrid hall in Southern Italy was inaugurated with Siemens technology. It is a multifunctional operating room, which allows to perform advanced cardiovascular procedures and traditional surgery and / or minimally invasive surgery with haemodynamic methods within the same operating environment, ensuring the patient the greatest possible safety. Also in 2015, for the first time in the Center-South and for the second time in Italy, another revolutionary equipment was inaugurated: “Rhythmia” by Boston Scientific. This is an extremely innovative instrumentation that has opened new avenues for the treatment of complex arrhythmias, allowing 3D cardiac mapping with parameters of visualization and definition of images never achieved before. Recently, thanks to the 3D Rhythmia mapping system, for the first time in Central and Southern Italy, our electrophysiology and electrostimulation service coordinator, dr. Antonio De Simone, has successfully performed the treatment of the “Brugada Syndrome”, a disease that alters the heart rhythm, causing palpitations, syncope, ventricular arrhythmias and, in the most serious cases, cardiac arrest. This new technique of ablation (coagulation necrosis by radiofrequency) is practiced by few centers in the world.
Activities of high complexity and minimally invasive techniques are also present in other departments. What are the benefits for patients?
The significant clinical and aesthetic benefits are mainly linked to the minor surgical trauma, to a faster and less painful post-operative course, to a lower incidence of infectious complications, and ultimately to a faster reintegration into the social and working life of the patient. My son Virgilio, head of the department of Orthopedics and Traumatology, is one of the few, in Italy, to practice the front access route in prosthetic hip surgery (Daa). This technique, which respects the anatomical integrity of the treated tissues, is decidedly less traumatic for the patient. For years, the surgeons of the San Michele Clinic, coordinated by dr. Lucio Delli Veneri, head of the General Surgery Operating Unit, uses “gentle” surgery for the treatment of various diseases, such as those concerning the gallbladder and biliary tract, achalasia, hiatal hernia, thyroid, cancer of the stomach and that of the colon.
Always with a view to increasing less invasive techniques compared to standard surgical methods in the treatment of cancer, and not only that, in 2017 we inaugurated an operating room dedicated to Interventional Radiology. Contact person is the dr. Renato Regine, thanks to the close collaboration with the departments of the surgical group, has successfully treated pulmonary, hepatic and renal metastases, embolized uterine myomas and other types of neoplasia, without surgical cuts and with increasingly personalized therapeutic approaches.
Per maggiori info (www.clinicasanmichele.com)
