The technique, known as single incision laparoscopic surgery, is the latest development in keyhole surgery where the instruments are inserted through the belly button including a tiny camera and surgeons manoeuvre inside using a TV monitor.
Surgeon Thomas Ind, who led the team which carried out the hysterectomy ��� the surgical removal of the uterus ��� on the woman named Debbie Price, said the method is only an extension of what is already being done with keyhole methods.
���Instead of making three or four holes for instruments we just make one hole. The patients like the idea of not having three or four little scars across their tummy���, he said. Price, 46, decided to go for the operation after suffering for years with adenomyosis ��� a painful condition where the womb lining grows into muscle of the uterus.