Surgery: Why It's Done, Smaller-Incision Methods and the Risks

People have surgery for many reasons:

• to relieve or prevent pain;
• to ease a symptom or improve how part of the body works;
• to find a problem — for example a biopsy, which removes a piece of tissue to study under a microscope;
• to save a life — as some heart surgery does.

Smaller cuts: laparoscopic surgery

Some operations that once needed large incisions (cuts in the body) can now be done through much smaller ones. In laparoscopic surgery, the surgeon passes in a thin tube with a camera to see inside, and works with small instruments.

Risks

Surgery can bring complications:

• infection;
• too much bleeding;
• a reaction to anesthesia;
• accidental injury.

And there is almost always some pain afterward.

Sources

Based on "Surgery," MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine, with its summary from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; a work of the United States government in the public domain.