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Show VA HOSPITALS DEVELOP ARTIFICIAL BLADDER FOR CANCER PATIENTS A promising new surgical technique tech-nique to create an artificial urinary bladder within the bady has bean reported by the Veterans Administration. Adminis-tration. Devised at the Dallas, Texas, VA Hospital, the operation uses a segment seg-ment of small intestine as a bladder blad-der for patients with cancer or ether disease necessitating bladder removal. Th;s new bladder, made of small intestine, conveys urine to the outside out-side through the normal channel i:i the normal manner, with full control con-trol of urination. 4 The procedure has been performed per-formed at the VA Hospital twice. The first patient, a 38 year old veteran, vet-eran, volunteered for the operation opera-tion 18 months ago, after suffering more than 10 years with a bladder diseased by a pre-cancerous lesion. The surgery v-.s successful and the man's post-operative condition has been good. All indications are that the second sec-ond operation, last December, also will prove successful. The operation, a result of nearly three months of research, is still in -' an investigative phase, but there is reason to believe it is a true achievement in this type of surgery, surg-ery, VA said. |