Surgeons: At The Edge Of Life | Series 7 Preview (BBC Two)

The popular medical documentary series returns and for the first time is in Scotland, offering a compelling insight into the innovative surgeries taking place in Edinburgh and the Lothians. It’s a region which has a long and proud history in the field of medicine, with the roots of The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh dating back to the 1400s.

Filmed at leading centres of medical excellence - NHS Lothian’s The Royal Infirmary, Western General, and St. Johns – the series has unprecedented access to surgeons, anaesthetists, theatre staff and patients.Consultant Hepato-Biliary Surgeon Rajan Ravindran takes on complex procedures involving the liver, pancreas, and gallbladder.

In this opening episode, he’s performing a joint case with Consultant Transplant Surgeons Andrew Sutherland and John Casey. It has only been performed in Scotland three times before.Their patient is 21-year-old Sania, whose acute recurrent pancreatitis means she has been living in pain for ten years. The inflammation of her pancreas has caused toxic substances to get into her bloodstream.

Without an operation, her pancreas will eventually be destroyed.The operation will remove her pancreas and involve extracting insulin and hormone-producing cells, called islets, and transplanting them into her liver. The cells will then continue to produce insulin and hormones. The procedure, known as an auto-transplant, is high-risk.Once the pancreas is removed, there’s a race against time. A specialist lab outside Edinburgh is one of only three in the UK that can carry out the extraction process.

As the scientists work on the pancreas, Rajan must reconstruct Sania’s digestive tract. At the Western General Hospital, Consultant Urological Surgeon Alex Laird’s patient also has a lot to lose. Sixty-one-year-old Ed, who cares for his wife full-time, has kidney cancer.

The tumour has spread from the kidney through Ed’s two renal veins and into the largest vein in the body, the inferior vena cava (IVC). If a fragment of tumour were to break off, it would travel to the heart and lungs causing a fatal embolism - and without an operation, Ed may not survive more than a year.

Because of the tumour’s growth, the operation is highly complex. Alex must shut off the blood flow in the IVC, open the vessel and coax the tumour back into the renal vein. Repeating the process for the other renal vein also means closing the blood flow from Ed’s healthy kidney.

Surgeons: At The Edge Of Life returns Wednesday 26th February at 9pm on BBC Two.