Hazlet, NJ, Woman With Kidney Cancer Chooses Robotic Surgery
June 27, 2023
School bus driver Linda Shorafa, a 66-year-old from Hazlet, New Jersey, was experiencing abdominal pain in winter 2021, when she saw her primary care physician Vijay Saaraswat. M.D., for a routine check-in. When Linda got the news from Dr. Saaraswat that her blood test showed there may be something going on with her kidneys, she was scared. She’d seen her mother go through dialysis and swore to herself that she’d never do it.
“I saw what my mother went through, what she felt and how she looked, and I told this to Dr. Saaraswat because I was scared,” she says. But dialysis wasn’t going to be her fate.
A New Finding, A Better Option
Dr. Saaraswat referred Linda to urologist Emad R. Rizkala, M.D., director of robotic surgery at Bayshore Medical Center, who ordered an abdominal MRI. The MRI showed a small mass inside one of her kidneys. Linda had kidney cancer, but the good news was that the mass—just over half an inch in size—was small enough that Dr. Rizkala believed it could be removed surgically with no need for any other further treatment and without risk of dialysis.
He explained to Linda he could do a robotic partial nephrectomy, a minimally invasive surgery in which robotic tools are inserted through three or four small incisions to remove a portion of the kidney that is involved with the tumor.
Some advantages of robotic surgery:
- Less need for pain medications
- Less blood loss
- Smaller incisions
- Quicker recovery
- Lower infection rate
Since this would be Linda’s first major surgery, she was hesitant. “I had the nerve to ask him, ‘How much experience do you have doing this?’” Linda says. Dr. Rizkala wasn’t offended by her inquiry. He told her what she wanted to know without any defensiveness on his part. Linda was impressed. “He respected me as a patient, and that is what gave me confidence to have the surgery with Dr. Rizkala,” she says.
Surgery a Success
Linda’s small tumor was unusual in that it was completely within her kidney. Because it couldn’t be seen just by looking at the surface of the kidney, Dr. Rizkala used an ultrasound probe placed on the kidney’s surface through small surgical incision.
The ultrasound probe allowed him to see where the tumor was in the kidney as well as its extent, so he could remove the tumor precisely without removing too much healthy tissue. “Having the ultrasound technology available was key,” he says, because with its guidance, he was able to remove the small tumor in one piece. That way, there was no worry of cancer cells left behind, and the kidney was left intact and functioning normally.
Linda was ecstatic that she wouldn’t need any further treatment or dialysis. An added bonus was that she had minimal pain after the surgery. She went home the day after the procedure and never needed prescription pain medication or even over-the-counter pain relievers.
Two weeks after surgery, Linda was back at work. While the children riding her school bus didn’t understand why she’d been gone, they were happy to have her back. One child, upon seeing Linda back, excitedly called out, “We miss Linda!”
“Little kids love you,” Linda says with a smile.
Nearly a year after her surgery, Linda still feels good, and her follow-up scans are clear. “From the second I walked into Dr. Rizkala’s office, he had my best interests at heart,” she says.
Next Steps & Resources:
- Meet our source: Emad R. Rizkala, M.D.
- To make an appointment with a urologist near you, call 800-822-8905 or visit our website.
The material provided through HealthU is intended to be used as general information only and should not replace the advice of your physician. Always consult your physician for individual care.
