Surgery

JOHANNESBURG -- Former President Nelson Mandela was released from the hospital Sunday after an overnight stay for minor diagnostic surgery to determine the cause of an abdominal complaint, a spokesman for the country's current leader said.

LAYTON — Surgeons at Davis Hospital and Medical Center are replacing hips with a new technique that promises less patient trauma and a shorter recovery time.

The minimally invasive anterior supine intramuscular approach is done by gaining access to the hip joint through a much shorter incision at the front of the hip instead of on the side or back, said Dr. Matthew Lyman, an orthopedic surgeon at Davis Hospital and Medical Center.

“One thing that patients don’t realize about the anterior supine intramuscular approach, or ASI, for total hip replacement is the importance of the S, or supine,” Lyman said. “The fact that the patient is supine (or on their back facing upward) makes a difference for several reasons. Most importantly, it makes it easy to use live x-ray in the operating room.”

SALT LAKE CITY -- Surgeons in the near future may have even better lighting when they cut open a patient, thanks to a Fremont High School graduate.

Jessica Ashmead, who is now a student at University of Utah, was chosen as a finalist in the national Collegiate Inventors Competition after she and her bioengineering partner, Annicka Carter, of Sandy, invented OptiGuide, a specially lighted medical retractor that could be used inside the surgical cavity.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Stanford surgeons seek to give two sisters a life apart, dividing their shared bodies into two in a long, delicate and risky surgery.

Without the procedure, San Jose conjoined twins Angelica and Angelina Sabuco -- fused at their liver -- would face a troubled future, with curved spines, muscle problems and the emotional challenges of intimately shared lives.

LOS ANGELES -- An Orange County, Calif., woman has died after weight-loss surgery at a Los Angeles outpatient clinic, the fifth person to die shortly after Lap-Band procedures at clinics affiliated with the 1-800-GET-THIN advertising campaign since 2009, according to lawsuits, coroner's records and interviews.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Her two wide-eyed and wondrously whole babies wiggled and stared up at her, so Adrienne Spates bent down to kiss one on the cheek while gently nudging the other with her index finger.

"Hey, Jacob, you see your brother?" she asked during a visit Wednesday morning.

Until this day, in fact, he hadn't. Neither boy had laid eyes on the other even though they're identical twins.

PHOENIX -- An 86-year-old Arizona man had just finished trimming plants in his backyard when he fell face-first into his pruning shears, sending one of the handles through his right eye socket and halfway into his head.

Unsure what had happened, Leroy Luetscher reached up and felt the shears jutting from his face. He was covered in blood and in more pain than he'd ever felt in his life.