The type and quality of surgical instrumentation available plays a part in ensuring the best potential outcomes of an operation. During the many centuries of evolution in medical science, surgical instruments have improved drastically. Although the basic notions of cutting, coagulating and sewing remain, the variety of tools available to perform these tasks has increased significantly.

Today’s surgical instruments are developed to accommodate the trend of keeping surgeries as minimally invasive as physically possible. Surgeries that once required a long incision and the opening up of a large surface area can now be completed with smaller incisions and the use of cameras.

Laparoscopes allow a surgeon to insert a camera through a small incision and have a complete view of the operating field. A needle driver is used to hold needles during laparoscopic surgeries and is specially designed to allow the surgeon to suture tissue inside the body without the need of a large incision for access. Trocars are used as passageways through the skin and tissue. Trocars are an example of facilitating instrumentation, as they provide the ability for other laparoscopic instrumentation to achieve optimal function. Energy devices have also been recently widely employed with great success.

Surgical Mesh

Surgical Mesh and Laparoscopy

Grasper

Laparoscopic bowel graspers, otherwise known as bowel forceps, are a form of grasping instrument designed to safely manipulate delicate abdominal tissue during laparoscopic procedures. One of their main functions is to facilitate adequate access to the surgical site by holding bowel tissue clear of the operating field.

Trocar

In its simplest form, a trocar is a pen-shaped instrument with a sharp triangular point at one end, typically used inside a hollow tube, known as a cannula or sleeve, to create an opening into the body through which the sleeve may be introduced, to provide an access port during surgery. The tip design of trocar instrumentation is something that is constantly evolving. The materials, edge design and transparency are factors that may facilitate placement inside the abdominal or thoracic cavity.

Needle Driver

Needle drivers, or needle holders, are used to grasp and manipulate needles to enable free-hand suturing of wounds or surgical incisions within the body during laparoscopic procedures. Surgical needle drivers have been in widespread use for little over a century. Prior to this, needles were large enough to be manipulated by hand, and any instruments that were developed to assist with suturing often had more in common with the tools of tailors, sail-makers or leatherworkers than with the surgical instruments of today.

Laparoscope

Analog medical cameras have been available since the mid-1970s, but were initially very heavy and could not be disinfected, limiting their usefulness in surgical applications. A major breakthrough occurred in 1982, when the first solid-state medical camera was introduced. Based around a silicon chip called a charge-coupled device (CCD), these digital cameras were lightweight, sterilisable, and offered improved color stability. CCDs are now commonly found in many consumer products including digital cameras and webcams. They consist of a silicon chip covered in image sensors, known as pixels, which convert incoming light energy from a visual scene into a digital signal that can be stored, processed or transmitted with greater efficiency and reliability than its analog equivalent. Today, a typical laparoscopy system consists of four main components: One or more digital cameras, a light source, a monitor and the scope itself.

Instruments

What Tools are used in Laparoscopic Surgery?

Laparoscopic surgery uses long-pencil like instruments that fit through small cuts in the abdominal wall instead of large incisions required during open operations.

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