Physician Specialist Glossary

When is minimally invasive surgery better than traditional surgery? What are the risks?

It's not often that a surgical technique becomes a national craze. But endoscopic or minimally invasive surgery has, albeit a minor one. It's in the newspaper. It's on the lips of your uncle, who can't resist showing off his tiny scars at every family function. Even on your commute to work, billboards trumpet the minimally invasive surgery centers at competing local hospitals.

"For patients, 'minimally invasive' are the hot buzzwords," says Michael Argenziano, MD, director of minimally invasive cardiac surgery and arrhythmia surgery at New York Presbyterian Hospital. "And surgeons are responding to their patients' demand. I don't think that there's a single surgical field that hasn't tried some sort of minimally invasive approach."

While the term is pretty vague, "minimally invasive" - or endoscopic or "keyhole" surgery - generally means operations that are less traumatic than traditional surgery. By using special instruments, the approach can allow for smaller incisions, quicker recovery, and fewer side effects. Since it was first used in the late 1980s, minimally invasive surgery has changed the standards for how many operations are done.

It makes intuitive sense to patients. Why get cut open if you can avoid it?

But minimally invasive surgery isn't right for everyone. Despite what you hear, "minimally invasive" doesn't always mean "better."

"People have this idea that minimally invasive surgery is not painful or that it's not really surgery," says Marshall Z. Schwartz, MD, professor of surgery in pediatrics at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. "Neither is true. It's not Star Trek technology, where we wave a wand over someone and they're healed."

Getting the Facts on Minimally Invasive Surgery

When it comes to deciding whether to get minimally invasive surgery, the key is to make an informed decision.