Surgery

Surgery is one of the main treatments for cancer and it is a procedure in which a surgeon removes cancer from the body. It can also be used to diagnose some types of cancer. However, surgery is not always suitable for all types of cancers and your team will recommend the best treatment for you based on your individual circumstances.

If surgery is an option, the procedure recommended for you will depend on your individual cancer. Your team, which will include doctors, surgeons and clinical nurse specialists (CNSs), will talk you through options as well as how you can prepare for surgery, any possible side effects or complications and what your recovery will be like.

There are a number of different ways of doing cancer surgery at Royal Surrey:

 

• Open surgery
  This is where a surgeon makes a cut to remove the tumour, some healthy tissue, and maybe some nearby lymph nodes.

 

• Keyhole (laparoscopic surgery)
  This is where the surgeon makes few small cuts and uses a camera for procedures inside the body. Patients that undergo keyhole surgery generally have faster recovery times.

 

• Robotic surgery (more advanced keyhole surgery)
  Royal Surrey has three state-of-the-art da Vinci Xi surgical systems and our surgeons have been performing robotically assisted procedures for more than a decade. The cutting edge machines allow surgeons to sit at a control console from where they can precisely control the robotic arms and instruments. The high-tech instruments and a high definition 3D camera are inserted through small cuts in the body. Benefits include, shorter hospital stays, quicker recovery, reduced blood loss and discomfort post-surgery.

 

• Endoscopic surgery
  This involves a long, thin tube with a small camera inside, called an endoscope, being passed into your body through a natural opening such as your mouth. Instruments can be passed through the tube to take a sample of tissue (biopsy). The endoscope can also be used to give some treatments to destroy pre-cancerous or cancerous cells.

 

• Interventional radiology
  This is sometimes referred to as image guided surgery as radiologists use image technology, such as X-ray, CT or Ultrasound, to look inside your body and perform minimally invasive procedures.