Fundus-first technique and partial cholecystectomy for difficult laparoscopic cholecystectomies.

Background: This study aims to evaluate the impact of conversion from retrograde dissection to fundus-first technique (FF) or laparoscopic partial cholecystectomy (LPC) on complication rates, operation time, and duration of hospitalization.

Methods: The medical records of 210 consecutive patients who underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy between January 2010 and December 2014 were retrospectively evaluated. All laparoscopic cholecystectomies were initiated with retrograde dissection (RD).

A robotic indenter for minimally invasive measurement and characterization of soft tissue response.

The lack of experimental data in current literature on material properties of soft tissues in living condition has been a significant obstacle in the development of realistic soft tissue models for virtual reality based surgical simulators used in medical training. A robotic indenter was developed for minimally invasive measurement of soft tissue properties in abdominal region during a laparoscopic surgery. Using the robotic indenter, force versus displacement and force versus time responses of pig liver under static and dynamic loading conditions were successfully measured to characterize its material properties in three consecutive steps.

Thoracoscopic diaphragm plication in children and indications for conversion to open thoracotomy.

Thoracoscopic plication of the diaphragm has been recently described as an alternative treatment for eventration. It is considered to be much less traumatic than the conventional method. We attempted thoracoscopic diaphragm plication on three patients.

Laparoscopic vagotomy using mini-instruments in the rat: a new laparoscopic small animal model.

Purpose: Animal models are necessary for research, technical developments, and training purposes in laparoscopic surgery. Although various operations on small animals have been described, there is still a need for a simple and practical laparoscopic small animal model. We acknowledged truncal vagotomy as a simple procedure, and aimed to develop a model of laparoscopic truncal vagotomy (LTV) in the rat, an inexpensive and easily available animal.