DMG Surgeon Uses Robotic Surgery for Rare Kidney Condition

Recent­ly, DuPage Med­ical Group urol­o­gist Dr. Ranko Mio­ci­novic became one of the first U.S. sur­geons to use a robot­ic sys­tem in treat­ing a rare and poten­tial­ly life-threat­en­ing con­di­tion of blood clot­ting, known as a throm­bus, which can result from kid­ney can­cer and requires com­plex and chal­leng­ing surgery to remove. On May 3, 2016, Dr. Mio­ci­novic suc­cess­ful­ly per­formed the sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure using the da Vin­ci robot­ic sys­tem at Edward Hos­pi­tal in Naperville to remove a throm­bus, mak­ing his achieve­ment a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to med­ical advance­ment that offers new hope for those who expe­ri­ence the condition. 

Robot­ic surgery is much less inva­sive than the tra­di­tion­al treat­ment, which involves sep­a­rat­ing the kid­ney from oth­er organs, hav­ing the affect­ed vein opened and the clot­ted can­cer tis­sue removed, then hav­ing the open vein recon­struct­ed. Now, through the da Vin­ci tech­nol­o­gy, one of the most advanced sur­gi­cal sys­tems avail­able, physi­cians are able to insert minia­ture instru­ments and a tiny high-def­i­n­i­tion 3‑D cam­era through small inci­sions. Enhanced mag­ni­fi­ca­tion helps the sur­geon see the small ves­sels on a mon­i­tor and, when cou­pled with the use of flex­i­ble robot­ic ​‘wrists’, gives the physi­cian greater pre­ci­sion to oper­ate by enact­ing com­mands from a con­trol panel. 

“Since we can reach the organ with­out open­ing the patien­t’s body, there is much less risk of pro­ce­dur­al com­pli­ca­tions,” says Dr. Mio­ci­novic. ​“This is a tru­ly for­ward-look­ing inno­va­tion for treat­ment of this type.”

To date, only nine aca­d­e­m­ic med­ical cen­ters in the coun­try have pub­lished that they have done the rad­i­cal nephrec­to­my with vena cava tumor thrombec­to­my robot­i­cal­ly, involv­ing a total of 33 patients. For infor­ma­tion on the exper­tise of Dr. Mio­ci­novic and the physi­cians of DMG, vis­it www​.DuPageMed​ical​Group​.com.