Founding of the group. In June 2016 with the support of the Chinese Medical Doctor's Association and Chinese OBGYN Association, the not-for-profit GLESS (including Notes) Working Group was founded. The national Working Group is tasked with creating and maintaining the Prospective GLESS data registry, standardizing LESS surgeon training, creating best practices and guidelines. The Working Group aims to extend to all 35 provinces in Mainland China covering over 200 hospitals nationwide.
The GLESS Working Group published an expert consensus in 2017 on the indications and contraindications of the surgery. The GLESS registry is a prospective observational case-only database. Literature has cases, outcomes are positive and promising, but there lacks a systematic and large scale multi-center registry to provide data driven evidence for best practices.
The goal for the group (evidence level- can we achieve level 1, Canada task force). Research, share experiences to identify indications, standard surgical practices, understand outcomes/observations. Provide empirical evidence for GLESS and Notes surgical indications and complications. Provide empirical evidence for advancing procedures, expanding surgical indications (e.g. can GLESS be performed on cervical cancer?), what is the reliability, standard procedures for training Create best practices for 1)Identifying suitable clinical indications- expanding 2)surgical techniques (entry, port placement, trochar, retraction, suture, ligation) \& selecting surgical instrumentation3)Identifying, minimizing, and handling complications.
4)Carrying out optimal perioperative and postoperative care 5)Creating a safe and comfortable experience in terms of cosmesis, pain, and overall experience 6)Understand how various techniques can impact short/mid/long term for patients Outcomes will include a National effort to coordinate followup to create the largest/most reliable data set for understanding prognostic outcomes related to GLESS. With accumulated data/big data techniques develop comprehensive short term and long term scoring systems for colleagues and patients around the world. Create standard nomenclature for easier collaboration and communication between gynecologists Note on NOTES? Why we include it here. Yes, notes is a natural progression from LESS. With the orifice being the vagina. We believe understanding the risks/rewards of such a procedure can make the transition from an umbilical to vaginal entry point easy.
