http://www.or-live.com/Tufts-NEMC/1732 Urology: Surgeons at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston will perform a hand-assisted laparoscopic radical nephrectomy during a live Webcast produced by OR Live on Wednesday, July 25th at 6:30 pm EDT. The surgery will be performed by Gennaro Carpinito, MD, Tufts-NEMC's Urologist-in-Chief and Chairman of the Department of Urology, and moderated by Tufts-NEMC surgeon Michael Tarnoff, MD. The Webcast will feature live Internet transmission of the procedure, as well as interviews with other members of the Medical Center's comprehensive and multidisciplinary urology and nephrology teams. Hand-assisted laparoscopic kidney removal is most often used for treating renal cancer, or to provide kidneys for transplant from an ever-increasing number of living kidney donors. Benefits of the laparoscopic approach include a smaller incision, less pain, a shorter hospital stay and faster recovery time for the patient. Traditionally, surgeons remove diseased or donor kidneys through an 8- to 10-inch incision from the middle of the abdomen to the back. With the hand-assisted laparoscopic approach, the surgeon makes two small abdominal incisions to insert a laparoscopic camera and surgical tools and a third incision, about 3-to-3.5 inches long, for the surgeon's hand to help remove the kidney. "The hand is a wonderful surgical tool," Carpinito says. "In a hand-assisted radical nephrectomy, the surgeon gets sensory information, which helps the procedure go more quickly. The kidney is removed whole, and the recovery time for the patient is about the same as with a purely laparoscopic approach – much faster than for an open surgery." The hand-assisted approach to nephrectomy works best for tumors that are 3- to- 10 centimeters in size. The procedure can be converted to the traditional surgery if a tumor proves too large to remove laparoscopically. "It is extremely important to have a multidisciplinary team with a full range of both sur...