A team led by Antonio R. Gargiulo, MD, Medical Director for the Center for Robotic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) perform a technique that employs dedicated single-site robotic technology to perform a myomectomy through a single incision in the umbilicus.
Aside from the evident cosmetic advantages over conventional multi-port myomectomy, the ability to perform the operation through a single 2.5 cm long entry (hidden within the umbilicus in most patients) offers a range of potential advantages deriving from the avoidance of several additional surgical entry points, including less postoperative pain, decreased risk of injury to the abdominal wall, bowel, and blood vessels, reduced risk of future post-surgical hernia formation.
Select patients with one or two uterine fibroids under eight centimeters and fewer than 10 fibroids are considered candidates for robotic single-site myomectomy. Dr. Gargiulo and his team began offering single-site robotic surgery in 2013 and have completed more than 25 robotic single-site myomectomy cases to date since new technology allowing this procedure has become available in 2014. In this selected group of patients, the team has observed no complications and no conversions to multi-port surgery or open surgery to date. Most patients for whom a single-site myomectomy is not recommended can still undergo robotic myomectomy with other cosmetic or standard port-placements, depending on the size and number of their fibroids.
