3D Laparoscopic Surgery

What is Laparoscopy?

Laparoscopy is a form of diagonistic as well as surgical procedure which is used for examining the organs inside the abdomen. It involves minimal invasive procedures. Laparoscopy uses instrument called Laparoscope to look at the abdominal organs.

A Laparoscope is an instrument with a high intensity light and a camera in the front. It enters your abdomen through an incision and allows the doctor to see inside your abdomen.

 

Need for Laparoscopy

Laparoscopy is useful in diagnosing the source of abdominal and pelvic pain. Laparoscopy is used when tests don’t provide enough information for a diagnosis. This procedure helps in taking biopsies or tissues samples from organs in the abdomen.

From a laparoscopy report the doctor can check for various issues such as abdominal cavity, liver disease, treatment efficiency and degree of cancer progression.

Laparoscopy technology is used to perform ‘Minimally Invasive Surgeries’.

3D Laparoscopic Surgery specialist - dr deepa ganesh

Problems with 2D Laparoscopy technology

Human body is a 3 dimensional (3D) figure. Also, the inner organs inside the body are in 3D. A normal laparoscope can render only a 2D image and with this to operate on a 3D body, it takes tremendous experience and expertise for a gynaecologist to perform the procedure without errors. Also, it takes a lot of time to complete any operation.  Also, the chances of complications (like scarring of tissues) are higher when an experienced gynaecologist performs the operation and that results in post operative complications.

 

Solution: 3D Laparoscopy technology

3D laparoscopy technology renders the image of parts inside the body in the same 3D format on the screen with depth perception. The surgeon/gynaecologist can clearly understand where the laparoscope is being placed and which tissue is being cut/fixed etc.  3D laparoscopy technology was introduced in 1990s but the technology limitations and the cost was not affordable for many clinics. As the technology advanced, the instruments became cost effective (not cheap though) and many good gynaecology clinics started using them.

Advantages of 3D Laparoscopy technology

1. Surgeries can be performed faster with more accuracy

As the 3D laparoscopy technology renders near life like images on the screen, a surgeon (even little experience in performing operations) can have a better visualization of the body organs and perform exactly what is needed. This results in faster surgery times and drastically improves the precision.

2. Inexperienced doctors learn quickly, experienced specialists do even better

As the technology helps the gynaecologists with better visuals with depth perception, even beginners can perform the surgeries and master it very quickly. And if the same technology is used by the expert gynaecologists, the error rate will be close to 0. This leads to very tiny to 0 complications and requires less post-operative care.

3. The types of operations that can be done with 3D laparoscopy have increased

Not just hysterectomy (whether normal hysterectomy or key hole surgery using a laparoscope), 3D laparoscopy technology is being used for myomectomy (removal of fibroids), removal of ovarian cysts (cystectomy), removal of gall bladder (cholecystectomy), removal of all or parts of colon (colectomy), removal of kidney (nephrectomy) etc.  This technology is being used to perform operations by gastroenterologists and urologists along with gynaecologists.

4. Reduced mortality rate

As the surgeries are done with near perfect accuracy and faster, patients lose minimal blood, need less anaesthesia during surgery, need minimal post-operative care, lesser pain medications and antibiotics and they can start returning to normal chores very quickly. This speed and accuracy has reduced the mortality rate in patients by a huge percentage with the application of 3D technology for laparoscopes.

 

What are the cons of using laparoscopy techniques?

  1. Use of general anesthetics might cause nausea or sore threat after operation
  2. Patients might get air pockets under the diaphragm, causing neck and shoulder pain
  3. People complain of feeling bloated after surgery.

Clearly, the advantages of using 3D laparoscopic technology outweighs the cons. Most medical associations across the world advise that good gynecology clinics to use 3D laparoscopy for performing surgeries.