Watch Surgeons: At the Edge of Life

Edinburgh's Western General Hospital is a leading centre for complex urological procedures. Consultant Urological Surgeons Steve Leung and James Blackmur take on some of the toughest cases involving the kidneys and the urinary tract. Their next patient has a very rare condition, affecting just one in a hundred thousand people in the UK.

Surgeons drain all of their patient's blood from his body to replace damaged arteries. A patient's fertility is at risk without a complex operation to remove diseased bowel.

A surgeon must remove part of his patient's tongue and reconstruct it to save her from an aggressive cancer, and surgeons perform a rare simultaneous pancreas and kidney transplant.

Surgeons face a difficult dilemma in the middle of a life-saving bile duct cancer operation. A chest sarcoma proves more challenging than expected, with no room for error.

One patient's rare penis cancer requires a partial amputation, and another patient with severe endometriosis must have a huge cyst and a damaged kidney removed.