Laparoscopic Surgery

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What is Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) ?

Surgery can be defined as the treatment of medical problems by mechanical means and often involves operations where malfunctioning or abnormal parts are removed or repaired. Traditionally, large incisions are made to provide access the part demanding attention. The significant dissection required by the surgeon to visualize the working field cause substantial pain and contribute to delayed patient recovery.

Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is a relatively new approach and is also known as keyhole surgery, micro surgery and telescopic surgery, etc. Operations are performed with the aid of specialized viewing equipment and surgical instruments designed to fit into the body through small punctures (incisions) or natural body openings.

With MIS, many procedures would require one to two days or less in the hospital. By eliminating large and extensive dissections, much of the pain of recovery can be eliminated and fast recovery is possible resulting in shortened hospitalization and rehabilitation time. Other benefits include less need for post-surgical pain medication, less scarring and less likelihood of incisional complications. Finally, potential problems occurring after surgery are drastically reduced.

However, the concept of MIS leads to several disadvantages faced by the surgeon. Free visible organs is no longer possible whilst the surgeon's sense of touch and dexterity are highly reduced due to the use of long narrow endoscopic instruments. MIS also requires surgeons to be familiar and comfortable with hand-eye coordination skills including the manipulation of instruments by looking at the image projected on a video monitor. These skills are not intuitive and optimization of the surgical procedures requires a considerable amount of training and experimentation before they can actually be applied in real operations.