What is Endoscopic Surgery?by Chris Miller, DVM Endoscopic surgery uses scopes going through small incisions or natural body openings in order to diagnose and treat disease. Another popular term is minimally invasive surgery (MIS), which emphasizes that diagnosis and treatments can be done with reduced body cavity invasion. Why? The goal for using endoscopes for surgery is to reduce the tissue trauma and body's response to the injury of traditional (or open) surgery. As compared to minimally invasive surgery, traditional surgery requires much longer incisions and the stretching of incisions with retractors. Minimally invasive surgery usually uses several very small openings, thus reducing the surgical insult. Controlled studies in patients and laboratory animals have found decreased stress response in patient operating endoscopically as compared to traditional surgery. Endoscopic surgery can be done to make a diagnosis, such as obtaining biopsy of an organ that history, examinations and laboratory studies suggest is not working properly. This can result in more directed and appropriate treatment. Another widespread use is to diagnose the type and spread of cancer. This can produce a more accurate understanding of the cancer and provide information to recommend, or not to, recommend specific cancer treatment. In the case of determining whether cancer is treatable, small openings reduce anesthetic and surgical stresses making it possible to wake the patient up. Many terminal patients can have extension of good quality life following endoscopic surgery. This contrasts to the traditional approach of euthanizing terminal patients during anesthesia, rather than permitting them to recover from a major surgery. An exciting new area for surgical endoscopy in animals is to treat using much smaller openings and tissue injury. This use of rigid endoscopes to treat people accelerated their application in human medicine. Examples include laparoscopic removal of disease gall bladders. Techniques currently being performed as treatments in dogs and cats include:
What Are The Advantages Of Laparoscopy? Laparoscopy is easier on the patient because it uses a few very small incisions. For example, traditional "open surgery" on the abdomen usually requires a four- to five-inch incision through layers of skin and muscle. In laparoscopic surgery, the doctor usually makes two to three incisions that are about a half-inch long. The smaller incisions cause less damage to body tissue, organs, and muscles. The patient can go home sooner; depending on the kind of surgery, patients may be able to return home a few hours after the operation, or after a brief stay in the hospital. The patient recovers quickly and experiences fewer post-operative complications and less pain. The amount of discomfort varies with the kind of surgery. In most cases, however, patients feel little soreness from the incisions, which heal within a few days. Most need little or no pain medicine. And with reduced hospitalization time and fewer complications, costs are reduced. Benefits of laparoscopic surgery:
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Chris D. Miller, D.V.M.