What's The Latest About Laparoscopy?

New developments in minimally invasive surgery should result in operations that are even easier on the patient and the treatment of a wider range of diseases. In the future, minimally invasive surgery will:

• Use even smaller incisions that heal faster with almost invisible scars. The standard laparoscope is about one-half inch in diameter. Newer micro-laparoscopes are about one-tenth of an inch in diameter so that some procedures can be performed through small hollow needles.

• Make greater use of local anesthesia and sedation through an intravenous catheter. Local anesthesia will make laparoscopy even safer by further reducing the already-small number of complications that occur with general anesthesia.

• Be done for more and more diseases. Researchers are developing minimally invasive methods for many types of surgery that currently require larger "open" incisions.

• Use computerized technology developed to run industrial robots. A doctor located hundreds or thousands of miles from the operating room may perform laparoscopic surgery. The doctor may use an image transmitted over the Internet, and move surgical instruments by remote control. (See http://www.lap-surgery.com)