Advances in Minimally Invasive Surgery

The minimally invasive approach in medicine is one of the most common areas of interest in surgery.Advances in Minimally Invasive Surgery describes the latest trends, indications, techniques, and approaches in minimally invasive surgery. It provides step-by-step instructions for both routine and diagnostic procedures via illustrations and video collection

Recent Advances in Minimally Invasive Surgery

Minimally invasive surgery has become a common term in visceral as well as gynecologic surgery. It has almost evolved into its own surgical speciality over the past 20 years. Today, being firmly established in every subspeciality of visceral surgery, it is now no longer a distinct skillset, but a fixed part of the armamentarium of surgical options available. In every indication, the advantages of a minimally invasive approach include reduced intraoperative blood loss, less postoperative pain, and shorter rehabilitation times, as well as a marked reduction of overall and surgical postoperative morbidity. In the advent of modern oncologic treatment algorithms, these effects not only lower the immediate impact that an operation has on the patient, but also become important key steps in reducing the side-effects of surgery. Thus, they enable surgery to become a module in modern multi-disciplinary cancer treatment, which blends into multimodular treatment options at different times and prolongs and widens the possibilities available to cancer patients. In this quickly changing environment, the requirement to learn and refine not only open surgical but also different minimally invasive techniques on high levels deeply impact modern surgical training pathways. The use of modern elearning tools and new and praxis-based surgical training possibilities have been readily integrated into modern surgical education,which persists throughout the whole surgical career of modern gynecologic and visceral surgery specialists

Advances in Minimally Invasive Surgery for Lung Cancer

Over the last 25 years, improvement in instrumentation and surgical techniques has led to widespread adaptation of thoracoscopic (VATS) surgery in the field of thoracic oncology. What once was a niche operation like VATS wedge resection to now hybrid VATS chest wall resections, and advanced surgeries like bronchoplasty and sleeve resections are done with VATS. This has led to improved surgical outcomes for our patients and increased use of surgery in the treatment of chest disease. We review the history of VATS and its current state with most recent changes and upgrades in the technique in this chapter. We review the advancement in uniportal VATS, robotic assisted resection, complex VATS resection, and awake lung surgery with VATS

Surgical Resection in HCC

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a deadly disease. Its incidence is rising worldwide without significant improvement in survival in spite of improving therapies. A wide array of treatment options for HCC exist and include surgery, catheter-based therapies, radiation and systemic therapy. These modalities are often used in combination for optimal management in a multidisciplinary approach. Surgical resection remains one of the only curative therapeutic options for HCC, although it is indicated in select patients with localized disease. Herein, we cover the role of surgical resection in the management of HCC, reviewing the perioperative and operative considerations, in addition to highlighting the advances in minimally invasive surgery and novel navigation technologies

Double-layered hand-sewn anastomosis: a valuable resource for the colorectal surgeon

Hand-sewn anastomosis is an essential and fundamental skill for surgeons dealing with any gastrointestinal anastomosis. Despite the advances in minimally invasive surgery and stapling devices, there are still complex surgical circumstances when the surgeon's surgical know-how are necessary. Therefore, a safe hand-sewn technique for bowel anastomosis is required to establish a tension-free, well-perfused, and sealed anastomosis that allows gastrointestinal continuity with no unexpected complications. We describe a step-by-step procedure for hand-sewn double-layered anastomosis that reflects these principles and is practical for small and large bowel anastomosis.ope

Minimally Invasive Management of Acute Biliary Tract Disease during Pregnancy

Background. Acute biliary diseases during pregnancy have been classically managed conservatively. Advances in minimally invasive surgery and the high recurrence rate of symptoms observed changed this management. Methods. This is a prospective observational study. Initial management was medical. Unresponsive patients were treated with minimally invasive techniques including gallbladder percutaneous aspiration or cholecystostomy, endoscopic retrograde cholangiography, and laparoscopic cholecystectomy, depending on the pregnancy trimester and underlying diagnosis. Results. 122 patients were admitted. 69 (56.5%) were unresponsive to medical treatment. Recurrent gallbladder colic was the most frequent indication for minimally invasive intervention, followed by acute cholecystitis, choledocholithiasis, and acute biliary pancreatitis. 8 patients were treated during the first trimester, 54 during the second, and 7 during the last trimester. There was no fetal morbidity or mortality. Maternal morbidity was minor with no mortality. Conclusion. Acute biliary tract diseases during pregnancy may be safely treated with minimally invasive procedures according to the underlying diagnosis and to the trimester of pregnancy

Advances in and Issues With Minimally Invasive Surgery for Rectal Cancer in Elderly Patients

Colorectal cancer ranks third after breast cancer in terms of incidence and second after lung cancer in terms of mortality.Management of rectal cancer requires a multidisciplinary approach, with the surgical management playing the main role. There are currently three resective techniques that complement the traditional open surgery: laparoscopic surgery, robotic surgery, and transanal total mesorectal excision.Rectal cancer in elderly patients is particularly hard to diagnose and treat surgically due to multiple comorbidities and limited functional reserve. Treatment of such patients may be associated with poorer outcomes after both open and minimally invasive surgery.This article reviews the current state of advances in minimally invasive surgery for rectal cancer in general and in elderly patients in particular

Modelling the deformation of biologically inspired flexible structures for needle steering

Recent technical advances in minimally invasive surgery have been enabled by the development of new medical instruments and technologies. To date, the vast majority of mechanisms used within a clinical context are rigid, contrasting with the compliant nature of biological tissues. The field of robotics has seen an increased interest in flexible and compliant systems, and in this paper we investigate the behaviour of deformable multi-segment structures, which take their inspiration from the ovipositor design of parasitic wood wasps. These configurable structures have been shown to steer through highly compliant substrates, potentially enabling percutaneous access to the most delicate of tissues, such as the brain. The model presented here sheds light on how the deformation of the unique structure is related to its shape, and allows comparison between different potential designs. A finite element study is used to evaluate the proposed model, which is shown to provide a good fit (root-mean-square deviation 0.2636 mm for 4-segment case). The results show that both 3-segment and 4-segment designs are able to achieve deformation in all directions, however the magnitude of deformation is more consistent in the 4-segment case