Natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES): the future of surgery

Natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) is an exciting and rapidly evolving area of surgery that may eventually provide the previously unattainable goal of scarless, and potentially pain free, surgery. Although a patent detailing the prospective therapy was filed in 1994, it was not until 2004 that interest flourished in this area, progressing quickly from largely investigative techniques in porcine models to the first two human NOTES cholecystectomies, which were performed almost simultaneously in Europe and the USA in April 2007.