Laparoscope

A thin, rigid instrument fitted with a light source and a lens or camera that a surgeon inserts through a small incision in the abdominal wall to view and operate on internal organs without the large opening a traditional open operation requires. The abdomen is first inflated with gas to create working space, and the laparoscope's image is displayed on a monitor, letting the surgeon guide separate slender instruments introduced through additional small incisions to cut, grasp, or suture tissue while watching the magnified view rather than looking directly into the body. Instruments for viewing the abdominal cavity through a small incision existed from early in the twentieth century, but the laparoscope became a genuine surgical tool, capable of supporting real operations rather than only diagnostic viewing, once fiber optic lighting, video cameras, and purpose built surgical instruments matured in the 1970s and 1980s. Because it avoids a large incision, laparoscopic surgery is generally associated with less postoperative pain, a shorter hospital stay, and a faster return to normal activity than the equivalent open operation, and the approach spread rapidly to procedures such as gallbladder removal and later to many other kinds of abdominal and pelvic surgery.