Gallbladder pulled through mouth

A surgeon has performed the country’s first operation to remove a patient’s gallbladder through her mouth.

Operating on a 35-year-old woman, Dr. Lee Swanstrom threaded tiny instruments through her mouth, down her esophagus and into her stomach. Using special endoscopic tools that contain a camera, the surgeon cut a hole in her stomach to reach the gallbladder, which is attached to the liver.

Then he cut away the diseased gallbladder and pulled it through the incision in the stomach, up her throat and out her mouth.

Swanstrom, who performed the surgery May 31 at Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital and Medical Center, said it heralds a new way of doing many kinds of abdominal surgeries without external incisions. He said the surgery has been performed in Brazil but this was the first time in the United States.

Washington, D.C.

Many bodies never identified

The nation’s coroners and medical examiners receive about 4,400 unidentified human remains on average annually but about 1,000 typically are not identified after a year, the government reported Sunday.

Overall, there were 13,500 sets of unidentified human remains on record at those offices as of 2004, the latest year such data was available, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The study of approximately 2,000 offices was the first of its kind, the Justice Department agency said.

Detailed information was gathered on unidentified human remains because they represent a “critical component in the nation’s effort to resolve missing persons cases,” according to the study.

Canton, Ohio

Woman linked to Ohio killing

A former classmate of a man suspected of murdering a pregnant woman was arrested Sunday on a related obstruction of justice charge, the FBI said.

Myisha Ferrell was arrested one day after the body of 26-year-old Jessie Davis was found in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, still carrying her dead, nearly full-term fetus.

Sheriff’s deputies and FBI agents arrested Ferrell after breaking down the door of her apartment, agent Scott Wilson said.

The Stark County Sheriff’s Department refused to discuss the arrest, saying any information made public would hurt their case. Ferrell was to be arraigned today, Wilson said.

Bobby Cutts Jr., 30, a police officer who is Davis’ boyfriend, is scheduled to be arraigned today on charges of murdering Davis and her fetus.

From wire reports