Reduced recovery times. Less scarring. Less pain medication. A quicker return to work and life. Minimally invasive procedures are revolutionizing surgery.
Patients no longer need dread surgical procedures. Many can now choose to go to surgeons who will operate using minimally invasive techniques such as laparoscopy instead of the large, open incision techniques surgeons have employed throughout history.
“Just about any surgery that used to be done with large incisions can now be done laparoscopically, or with smaller incisions,” says General Surgeon Robert Harson, M.D., Davenport Surgical Group, and Mississippi Valley Health Network member. “As new techniques are developed, patients are finding that there’s no reason to put off surgery, because these new minimally invasive techniques are getting people back home and to life quickly.”
Tiny incisions. Better surgical options.
Until recent years, slicing into patients to lay their bodies open for surgery was the only way surgeons could, for example, remove a diseased gall bladder. Many surgeons still use this approach. “Open surgery has a multitude of complications that we’re avoiding,” adds General Surgeon William Olson, M.D, Rock Island, IL. “Many hernias are actually caused by previous open surgeries. And the injury inflicted by a large, open incision requires medical attention itself.”
Surgeons like Drs. Olson and Harson perform a number of minimally invasive procedures laparoscopically including: laparoscopic hernia surgery, abdominal or groin hernia, laparoscopic colon surgery, and reflux surgery. Says Dr. Harson: “For example, in the past, to perform colon surgery for cancer, polyps or diverticulitis, you had to make a large incision the entire length of abdomen. But now for many colon surgeries, new smaller incisions for these operations are similar to an appendectomy than their open predecessors.”
What is Laparoscopic Surgery?
The laparoscope that gives these procedures their name is a small instrument that shines light inside the body so the surgeon can view the working area through a miniature video camera (the picture the surgeon sees is regular-size, of course; only the camera is small). To make room for the surgeon’s tiny instruments, part of the abdomen is ‘insufflated’ or blown up like a balloon to raise the abdominal wall up above the internal organs.
Instead of ordinary air, the abdomen is inflated with carbon dioxide, which is easily absorbed by the body and expelled while breathing. Laparoscopy uses up to three tiny incisions. “The biggest is half an inch,” notes Dr Olson.
It was introduced generally almost 20 years ago, and most doctors have developed a comfort level with it. One of the newer approaches to laparoscopic procedures is to perform the entire surgery through the bellybutton, which leaves no visible scarring at all.
The surgeons typically use laparoscopic surgical techniques to perform most abdominal surgeries, including: gall bladder, appendix, spleen, kidney, hysterectomy, tubal ligation, pelvic, adrenal gland, colon and hernia surgeries. “Some medical practices don’t offer laparoscopic groin, colon repair or hernia repair surgeries,” notes Dr. Harson. “I encourage patients to ask for minimally invasive procedures,” he adds. “People do have a choice.”
