No Scar Surgery | Video

Michelle San Miguel | 7/11/2012

Surgery can often leave patients with numerous and lasting scars. But less invasive surgeries, also known as laparoscopic procedures, are becoming more common. Health professionals say these less invasive surgeries can be done for procedures like removing your gall bladder, for gastric bypass surgery and even for a hysterectomy.

This operating room on wheels is touring the country, educating physicians about the latest equipment available for laparoscopic surgery. Take a routine surgery, like a hernia repair. Dr. Derek Kane says it would usually require several incisions, but he`s now learning a new way to do it.

"So instead of having those three to five small incisions, you end up getting one incision where you can put all the instruments through a device and then do the operation through that one incision. It sounds like you don`t need to place any staples or tacts or suter in it. It`s just sort of self-fixing."

Covidien, a company that sells medical products, is teaching surgeons at Mid Dakota Clinic the benefits of belly-button procedures.

"Now we`re actually going in with ports through the umbilicus which is our belly button. We`re expanding that space with a device and then we`re fixing it from the inside," said Covidien Regional Sales Manager Michael Solomon.

With only a single incision, Solomon says these procedures reduce a patient`s chance of infection and decrease the amount of time spent in the hospital.

"We`re taking what used to be procedures that would last three or four hours, minimize the actual time of the procedure, then instead of a three or four day recovery in the hospital, they`re home that evening with their family."

And a shorter hospital stay is good news for hospitals in Bismarck that are already busy with an increase in patients.

Those who support single incision surgery say another benefit is that patients feel less pain after the surgery than they would with traditional open procedures. It`s also important to note that all of the equipment that was on display today is being used clinically across the country.

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