Laparoscopy is a diagnostic method that can detect the presence or absence of metastases of pancreatic cancer before surgery. This allows you to choose an effective treatment plan for the disease. This diagnostic method is mainly used as a final examination, when earlier studies have left a lot of ambiguity in the extent of the spread of cancer.
Pancreatic laparoscopy replaces the diagnostic laparotomy, but these methods would not be counterposed correctly. The advantages of laparoscopy are the simplicity of the method, greater safety and less traumatism. Often after this method of diagnosis, there is no need for laparotomy. However, inferior to its diagnostic capabilities of laparotomy, because of what is not always able to replace it.
The method of laparoscopy also makes it possible to clarify the appearance, form of the pancreas disease, to reveal the obvious and indirect signs of pancreatitis and to determine the indications for the use of laparotomy.
Various laparoscopes with fiber optics, instruments for biopsy and various manipulations, video laparoscopy - an innovation of the last decade - have significantly increased the possibilities of this method. Information obtained by such a diagnosis of the state of the pancreas before surgery allows us to determine the stage of cancer and is used as a basis for drawing up an individual treatment plan for the patient.
Initially, laparoscopic pancreatic surgery was used only to determine the stage of cancer and perform palliative surgery in an inoperable tumor. But the scientific discoveries of the last decade in this field have made it possible to expand its possibilities to necrectomy with pancreatic necrosis, resection of pancreatic tumors and drainage of pseudocysts in pancreatitis.
The advantages of such surgery are significantly less postoperative pain, a shorter hospitalization period and a shorter recovery time after surgery.
This can be explained by the fact that with laparoscopy, unlike open operations, there is no need to make a large laparotomy incision and strongly manipulate the abdominal organs to gain access to the area of operation. This method gives a good anatomical picture, which is important in pancreatic surgery due to large vessels in the operative zone and retroperitoneal location of the pancreas.