Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery And Its Many Benefits

By Pamela Barnes


Due to human mortality and the need to live longer, medical advances have extended their efforts to cut people open and fix problems directly at the root cause. It definitely is not a pretty sight or a circumstance. But when it is a matter of survival no one bothers to question the methods of experts.

Thanks to innovation and technology surgical alternatives are accessible, basically procedures that lessen open surgery complications. A minimally invasive operating method called Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery, or SILS, is available now. This procedure only uses one single entry point and this means a lot of things for a patient.

The beauty that SILS offers is how it is fast and virtually scar less. Hypothetically, that city dweller from New York who does not have time to be sick and is too fashionable to have scars on their stomach, might need his appendix removed. SILS is how they get it done fast with the least cosmetic damage.

With SILS, the patient feels less post operation pain, since the area operated on is not cut wide open. This is due to SILS being a procedure where a single incision is made in the belly button to make way for the fiber optic cable to get through. This cable is connected to a screen that serves as the eyes of the surgeon during the procedure.

While there are many ways laparoscopy can be done, Minimal access surgery, more popularly known as MAS, is when surgeons use only a single port for where the procedure is done. This means that the pain the patient feels and the time it takes for them to recover is lessened. As a result, the amount of pain medicine that the patient takes is not as much as he would if going through a normal open surgery.

For many abdominal area surgeries this process prevents the gastrointestinal tract from being exposed to the air inside the operating room preventing many possible complications. This means that important parts of the stomach lining is unlikely to reach a level of unsafe dryness and will not be able to absorb any harmful bacteria that may cause other illnesses, since no internal organs are out in the open.

Endoscopy has a range of varying procedures ranging from using natural orifices and cutting up a port. SILS is becoming a more practiced method even with its handicaps. Maneuvering restrictions is among the most difficult to overcome along with having the surgical instruments clashing. This is because of the incision being too narrow. Advancing medical tech is the only way these surgeons have been going around these challenges.

MAS is a procedure that has surprisingly shown a lot of positive feedback from both the people in the medical field and patients. This procedure does not have a rising number of cases with complications such as incision induced hernias and bile duct injuries. Patients would also most favor having less cosmetically damaging operations.

While there are difficulties that come along with single port surgery procedures, it is safe to say that very good results have come out of it. Despite these difficulties their practitioners are still able and willing to go through the steep learning curve and increased operating times. Hopefully, the technology to circumvent the surgical challenges will be available as innovation advances.




About the Author: