New procedure making waves

New procedure making waves

A new ‘water jet’ procedure providing shorter, safer treatment for kidney tumours is being run at Capital & Coast District Health Board (CCDHB).

The water jet is a high pressured jet of fluid that cuts tissue selectively to remove a tumour from the kidney.

The jet is used instead of a knife to cut the tissue. This approach is more delicate and leaves blood vessels intact, allowing precise clipping of these, thus reducing the risk of bleeding.

Previously, surgeons only had a half-hour timespan to perform the desired cutting by using a knife, as the kidney had to be clamped.

The new procedure means clamping is no longer needed, giving surgeons and patients a win-win situation.

“Not having to have the kidney clamped relieves the intense time pressure and rush, and there is no rapid bleeding,” urology surgeon Mr Andrew Kennedy-Smith says.

Thirty cases on tumours up to 8cm in size have been operated on at Wellington Hospital and Southern Cross Hospital since September 2013.

The water jet has also sped up the process in getting patients home, as overall the procedure is about an hour shorter.

“It shortened their hospital stay by a day,” Mr Kennedy-Smith says.

The procedure is also safer for patients as it removes the risk of secondary bleeding which occurred in one in five patients.

The technique is now being adapted to an approach through the back, rather than the abdomen, further shortening the patient hospital stay.

And one patient says when Andrew explained the new procedure, it was an easy choice to trust his doctor.

“It made perfect sense to me, as it was obviously going to benefit me”

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