D Gomez, MD, F Arias, MD, G Herrera, MD, A Quintero, MD, N Cortes, MD, G Garcia, MD, L Rojas, MD, C Rodriguez, MD. Fundacion Hospital San Carlos.
Materials and Methods: A self-designed affordable device was made using equipment routinely available in an operating room such as a chest tube, surgical gloves and silk sutures. It is inserted to the peritoneal cavity through a 2 cm incision at the level of the umbilicus. Conventional trocars are placed through the fingertips and secured with rubber bands. Pneumorperitoneum sets de glove port firm in the abdominal wall.
Results: We performed 57 non-consecutive cases (January 2013-September 2013) of single port laparoscopic surgery using the homemade surgical device. The most frequently performed procedure was cholecystectomy (82.4%), followed by appendectomy (12.2%). An additional 5 m trocar was inserted in 7 cases due to technical difficulties. Mean operative time for cholecystectomies was 46 minutes. There were no conversions to open surgery. No postoperative complications were registered in this series.
Conclusion: Several single access laparoscopic procedures have been describe in current literature, however most of these have been develop using commercially available single port devices. Our homemade surgical device presents as a cost-effective tool with a safe profile to be used in single access laparoscopic surgery, specially in emergent countries.