Tawams Hospital Advanced minimally Invasive surgical oncology team, in affiliation with Johns Hopkins Medicine and the SEHA healthcare system, has successfully conducted UAE first totally laparoscopic minimally Invasive gastrectomy. The same team of surgeons have also continued Tawams successful record by performing three minimally invasive esophagogastrectomies and a distal splenorenal shunt in a complex case of congenital portal vein anomaly; first in Tawams surgical history.

These procedures were performed by a team of experts in minimally Invasive Surgical Oncology including Dr. Ali Al Dameh & Dr Amgad El Sherif Consultant Thoracic Surgeons, Dr Sadir Al Rawi Consultant Surgical Oncologist and Dr Basil Safi Consultant Vascular Surgeon.

An esophagogastrectomy, the surgery to remove esophagal cancer, requires removing of a segment of the affected area and then rebuilding the esophagus by stretching the stomach or using a graft to fill in the missing sections.

This is a very complex operation that can take several hours to perform. There are usually a variety of concerns when you open a patients body but this approach allows the surgeon to focus on the problem at hand with minimal collateral injury to the body, said Dr. Al Dameh previous surgeon at Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA. Dr Al Dameh is an expert in the treatment of cancers of the chest, upper gastrointestinal tract including the stomach and esophagus and minimally invasive surgery for visceral tumors of the abdomen.

Tawam Hospital is constantly breaking the boundaries in order to ensure the best results. Our ability to constantly innovate and perform advanced procedures confirms our place as surgical leaders in the region, said Dr Amgad El Sherif, Thoracic Surgery Division Chief at Tawam Hospital.

The traditional approach of open surgery can result in trauma and long recovery times. Instead, the highly skilled surgeons in the Tawam Team employed a minimally-invasive approach that requires small and fewer incisions and the assistance of a video to navigate the body. This procedure dramatically reduces the likelihood of post-surgery infections and patients are discharged on a faster pace.

Whenever you make a patients experience more pleasant and less stressful after a complicated surgery, that is when the real revolutionary work occurs. We are proud to have performed such a complicated surgery with minimal inconvenience to the patient. This could only mean we can treat more patients suffering from complex esophageal and gastric disorders right here in the UAE, said Dr. Brian Gill, Chair of Surgical Department in Tawam Hospital.

Additionally, Tawam Hospital also performed the first distal shunt, which requires detaching the splenic vein from the portal vein and attaching it to the left kidneys vein. This surgery is done in order to reduce the blood pressure in the stomach and esophaguss veins and regulate blood clots.

Tawams Surgery department is one of the well-respected divisions at the hospital. It covers general surgery, vascular surgery, orthopaedic surgery, otolaryncology/head and neck surgery and maxillofacial surgery, ophthalmology, surgical experience specifically oculoplastics, plastic surgery, pediatric surgery, neurosurgery and thoracic surgery. In thoracic surgery, Tawam serves cases of oncology; trauma surgery; video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS); esophageal physiologic laboratory; esophageal surgery; mediastinal surgery; non-cardiac thoracic surgery; laparoscopic hiatus hernia/myotomy; tracheo-esophageal stenting; and, endoscopic surgery (Tracheo Bronchial Esophageal).

Tawam Hospital is part of the SEHA Health System owned and operated by Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (SEHA), which is responsible for the curative activities of all the public hospitals and clinics of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.