Minimally invasive surgery versus Traditional Surgery

In traditional surgery, you might have very large cuts in the skin and at times the surgeon may have to do damage to other parts of the body in order to open up a large enough space to do their work with their hands. They may have to cut through the ribs, bones or muscle to make the space needed for the operation. Most of the recovery time needed, pain and bloodloss occurs not because of the operation, but of all the cuts and trauma needed to open up enough space in the body to be able to get hands and instruments in the area to perform the work.

Instead, minimally invasive surgery attempts to avoid having to open up the body so much by using special tools such as the the endoscope. A skinny tube with a minature camera and light is inserted into the body through an incision just big enough to fit the tiny endoscopic tube into. The surgeon then uses this as his eyes during the operation, viewing the camera's view on a monitor. The surgeon makes other small incisions just large enough to insert the special tools for the operation.

The incisions required for endoscopic surgeries can be less than half an inch at times.