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At least that many people have colostomy surgery annually, joining the ranks of tens of thousands of people already living with a colostomy. A colostomy is indicated when a person has lost the normal function of the bowels due to disease, injury, or some other disorder. After a colostomy, bodily wastes are expelled into a colostomy bag through a surgical opening, or stoma, on the abdominal wall.
While people from all walks of life manage to lead normal, active lives after their colostomy, it's a condition that people don't like to talk about. It is certainly not a condition anyone would opt for, if given a choice.
Yet for an increasing number of patients, a choice is exactly what is being offered by two Main Line colorectal surgeons.
Dr. Gerald J. Marks and Dr. John H. Marks, international leaders in the field of colorectal cancer, maintain a practice at Lankenau Hospital.
Dr. Gerald J. Marks has pioneered a procedure that combines preoperative radiation treatment for colorectal cancer with an intricate surgical technique that provides access to the lowest part of the rectum and allows for the preservation of the sphincter muscle. The combination of preoperative radiation, highly controversial when Dr. Marks first started using it in the early 1960s, with the preservation of sphincter function allows many of his patients to literally "beat the bag."
Dr. John H. Marks is a principal investigator and the only colon and rectal surgeon in the tri-state area participating in the National Cancer Institute-sponsored trial comparing laparoscopic to open colectomy for the treatment of colon cancer. He also performs Transanal Endoscopic Microsurgery (T.E.M.), a technique that allows a transanal approach to lesions that otherwise would require an abdominal or transsacral approach for resection. He heads one of two T.E.M. training centers in the United States that teaches other surgeons this innovative technique.