Sao Paulo Inteviews Steffano Bettocchi by Tamer Seckin
Dr. Tamer Seckin
Hello everyone, this is Tamer Seckin. We are at São Paulo, Brazil. At the Brazilian Endometriosis Society and ISGE joint meeting. We are here today with the President of ISGE, Dr. Stefano Bettocchi. I like to, he needs no further introduction because Stefano is the name behind his own hysteroscope and wonderful design and with his innovation, we all follow his footsteps. Stefano, congratulations this was a great presentation today.
Dr. Stefano Bettocchi
Thank you very much, okay.
Dr. Tamer Seckin
As a President this is the first time, I have honor to talk to you. I think our viewers around the world, the new gynecologists, aspiring endoscopists are looking to hear from you because our society, I know and we all know is about to leap to another growth period. We all see this happening under your leadership. So I wanted to really take it from here, give some message and see what you will say.
Dr. Stefano Bettocchi
Thank you, Tamer. So as you know, ISGE is devoted to an international partnership, so we are proud to grow up and to become more and more international. Certainly, we will as I said yesterday during the presentation, we will change - and we are looking for a big partnership. So probably the next two years will be the most hard years of the society. I hope with the help of both the members to move the society to really high scientific levels and also why not economical levels in order to facilitate all operations for our activities.
Certainly, another big step will be to have a very professional teaching program, we will probably start from next year or we will allow so called under developing country to afford the teaching and creation of a group of specialists in order to promote in their own country in the field of gynecological endoscopy.
Dr. Tamer Seckin
Am I hearing that we are sticking to our mission, we bring advance laparoscopy home where our members are?
Dr. Stefano Bettocchi
Yeah.
Dr. Tamer Seckin
We will right now organize as I understand into specialized groups that would do teaching in prepared way with the support of the technology?
Dr. Stefano Bettocchi
Yeah, we have always looked to our mistake probably one of the mistake not of our society but all the societies around the world is that they do not take too much care of their members. So, we have decided as I told you to change our behavior and we are more and more close to our members. This means not only to send an information but to also to involve them in our activity and to spread out our knowledge or the knowledge of our members in a country where this request is quite high. So that is the reason why we are moving on with this program. We are being quite innovative I hope.
Dr. Tamer Seckin
We are continuing with Stefano Bettocchi. He had a great presentation of his almost specialized topic office hysteroscopy. Stefano is the man and the brain behind Bettocchi office hysteroscope, which we have seen wonderful things today which is what is wonderful about it. It is his new way of doing for the years, I have watched him in China doing this, touchless, without touching or using any speculum, no tenaculum. He can go vaginoscopy and find the cervix and goes inside. Stefano, how does this technique really work?
Dr. Stefano Bettocchi
This is, I mean, this technique belongs from observation and examination of the new technology were available at a time we thought about this technique and this technique is always under development. So we change always something depending by the new technological improvement arriving from the company, we will see from the company.
So the technique is mainly devoted to reduce the pain and the discomfort for this kind of procedure. When we talk with ladies and we say, oh you have to undergo hysteroscopy, Jesus, I heard from my friends, I saw that it is quite painful. How we explain to the lady that it was painful in the past probably your friend did it in the let us say, a classic way. So we are trying to reduce the really the discomfort for the patient. So having a better approach. Obviously if the patient feels comfortable, the doctor will feel comfortable and probably he will put more efforts in the technique. So it is a way to grow and to move this technique from the field of let us say invasive procedure to the field of noninvasive or minimal invasive procedure.
Dr. Tamer Seckin
You have shown us that even with a smaller almost stenotic cervix is you can go in without any problem with the flexure of the uterus, I guess. You can go in and visualize even operate. What is the smallest, your diameter I understand is 4.5 millimeter?
Dr. Stefano Bettocchi
No, the instruments were present on the market to reach finally less than 4, so 3.75 millimeters. So, if you consider that up to 10 years ago the minimum size was 5 millimeter, so we are reducing 30-35% the size of the hysteroscope. Probably for who is not an expert in anatomy, 1 millimeter, 2 millimeter means nothing, but if you consider that cervix and - is a critical place where we have to pass through, it is 5 millimeter, a decrease of 2 millimeter, it means the decrease of 35-40% of the size or so.
Dr. Tamer Seckin
You do not use any sedation for this?
Dr. Stefano Bettocchi
No, absolutely not.
Dr. Tamer Seckin
Absolutely not. Tell us what besides diagnosis, we have seen you doing some procedures? Tell us those procedures …
Dr. Stefano Bettocchi
As I said this morning, we do not distinguish anymore between diagnosis and diagnostic and operative procedure. It is a so-called, see and treat. You go in with your scope, it is like laparoscopy. When you go in, and you see, adenomatous cyst, endometriosis or whatever, what you do? You stop the procedure and you go back with endoscope, no, you are already prepared, ready for the surgery. This is the same concept we apply to hysteroscopy, go in, our scope as - channel and through this channel we can insert instrument, mechanical foremost and perform surgery.
Dr. Tamer Seckin
Wonderful. Stefano, how can people reach to your website? What is your address?
Dr. Stefano Bettocchi
The website is www.hysteroscopy.org. It is under reconstruction, but it is anyway available for just to have a look and then they can easily contact me on the email, it is reported on the website.
Dr. Tamer Seckin
Thank you for your knowledge Stefano.
Dr. Stefano Bettocchi
Thank you very much. Thank you.
