Video cameras and specialized surgical instruments can be inserted through small access incisions in the skin and utilized within the optical cavity for the removal or repair of an organ system. The advantages of laparoscopic surgery come from minimizing the trauma of access to internal organs. By avoiding a long incision through the muscles, many postoperative problems are eliminated, and pain is markedly reduced. This enables you to breath and cough better. Use of strong pain medications is drastically reduced so the drowsiness, fatigue, and unsteadiness they cause is minimized.
All surgery carries some risk.
Those risks that are the most important for you to know about are mentioned here. Most of the complicated laparoscopic procedures that we perform require full general anesthesia to allow enough relaxation of the muscles of the abdominal wall so that the operative space to work in is large enough. Modern anesthesia is very safe, and the anesthesiologists at Mount Sinai are all highly-skilled board certified physicians. Naturally they will need to be fully informed of any medical disorders that you may have or problems with anesthesia in the past. It is especially important that if you have any heart problems your regular physician send copies of old EKGs and information about any other tests that you may have had.