AdventHealth Physician and Team Become First in the World to Create and Perform New Endoscopic Procedure Allowing a Patient to Eat Normally Again

Former AdventHealth Celebration ER Nurse & patient, Rene Galloway, 52, recently became the first recipient in the world to have a brand-new procedure called an Endoscopic Blind Limb Reduction with Septotomy, also known as a “Candy Cane” procedure. Using repurposed surgery tools, AdventHealth Orlando Interventional Endoscopist, Dr. Kambiz Kadkhodayan, created, sketched out this new type of surgery, discussed it with Galloway and her husband and performed the first of two back-to-back surgeries in March 2023.

Candy Cane Syndrome refers to patients, like Galloway, who have undergone roux-en-y gastric bypass (RYGB) and develop significant and sometimes debilitating abdominal discomfort. Symptoms typically begin after eating and usually dissipate after vomiting.

“By suturing endoscopically and dissecting with the use of electricity, we reduced the blind pouch,” said Kadkhodayan. “That was the a-ha moment – when we realized that there was no contrast filling the blind pouch and almost all of the contrast entered into the elemental limb like we would normally expect.”

To learn more about Galloway’s journey and how the AdventHealth Center for Interventional Endoscopy team changed her life, click here.