Role and Limitations of Mininvasive Approach in Abdominal Emergencies and Trauma

Trauma surgery is traditionally carried out through open procedures; however, the use of laparoscopy in stable patients has been gaining room due to favorable outcomes reported in different studies available in the literature. Nowadays, laparoscopy applied to trauma cases can be divided into screening, diagnosis, and therapeutic applications. Laparoscopic surgery application was initially limited to screening procedure focused on finding peritoneal violations; such a procedure would be followed by exploratory laparotomy. The benefits of using laparoscopy in trauma cases as diagnostic tool to rule out intra-abdominal injuries that may have gone unnoticed in computed tomography, such as diaphragmatic injuries, as well as violation of the peritoneal cavity after stab wounds can be easily seen. It can be used to prevent unnecessary laparotomies in patients with penetrating injuries, whose fascial breach cannot be clinically or radiologically ruled out. The aim of this chapter is to discuss the indications, benefits, and potential complications associated with this method.