Surgical Treatments Have Improved A Long Way

Technology and new scientific findings have improved medicine in several ways. What seemed impossible 50 years ago is completely achievable today. Humans’ lifespan has increased thanks to surgical treatments that weren’t available in the past. Technological advancements helped surgeons be more accurate during surgeries while reducing the risks and complications. 

Medicine is always finding new ways to treat patients and every year, a new treatment or piece of technology is invented to make surgeons do their jobs faster and more efficiently. Here is how surgical treatments have improved in the last few years.

Smaller Incisions

In the past, undergoing surgery meant that you could be left with a huge scar on your body while taking a long time to recover. A minimally invasive treatment called laparoscopic surgery has cut down the recovery time significantly while leaving minimal scarring. In this surgery, the surgeon makes several small incisions instead of a big one and inflates the area where they are operating. 

A laparoscope, a small camera, is inserted and takes pictures of the patient’s insides. The surgeon can do the surgery quickly and more efficiently through laparoscopic surgery, allowing patients to go home on the same day as opposed to six weeks in the past.

3D Printing

3D printing is an extremely promising aspect of medicine with existing applications in surgical treatments. Some medical professionals have succeeded in printing living human organs to be used in transplants. It’s still early to use 3D-printed organs for transplants but this surgery has great potential. There will be no need for donors and waiting lists.

Surgeons can practice specific surgical treatments by printing out models of body parts. It helps them improve their techniques while identifying potential complications in a low-risk environment. Surgeons can 3D print the patient’s body organs to test which methodology will be more effective in their case.

Improved Safety Standards

Infections caused by poor safety standards affect 5% of patients and these infections can deteriorate their conditions. Complications during surgery used to be one of the main causes of death in surgical procedures. However, new practices and findings have improved safety standards significantly.

Bleeding out during surgery used to be dangerous. Thanks to scientific findings, Hemostatis allowed surgeons to perform their surgeries while keeping blood in their tissue and vessels. Other safety standards have reduced site infections and saved millions of dollars.

Reconstructive Surgery

Reconstructive surgery has improved leaps and bounds in the last decade. Breast cancer survivors can reap the benefits of reconstructive surgery as women can choose how they want to rebuild their breasts in shape and looks. Treating burnt skin has become more accessible with better options than taking patches of skin from another part of the body.

Face transplants are on the horizon as scientists and medical professionals are inventing ways to perform full face transplants such as jaws, tongues, and teeth. The future of reconstructive surgery will allow people who suffer from facial deformities caused by trauma disease to live a normal life.

Robotic Surgery

Human involvement is crucial to any surgery but with robotic help, the chances of success increase dramatically. Surgeons today use robots or robotic arms to help them during surgery to improve their precision, flexibility, and control. Surgeons use a computer near the operating table and control several robot arms which have cameras that let the surgeon navigate safely while performing the surgery. Each arm is equipped with different surgical tools.

Radiology and Imaging Advancements

Radiology and imaging are vital for diagnosis and locating tumors in patients. There were many blind spots and inaccurate images and scans in old medical machines and devices. A patient would get a wrong diagnosis if the doctor or technician didn’t spot the cause of the symptoms. Nowadays, there are devices such as smart fusion ultrasound systems that can do the functions of MRI and ultrasound together. These systems can locate prostate cancer with great precision and detect it early. Other machines are in development that will improve existing functions such as CT scanning and PET scanning.

Medicine is evolving all the time and each day we discover a new invention or cure that will help humans live a better and more comfortable life. Gone are the days when you have to stay in the hospital for weeks to recover from surgical treatment. You will feel a little bit of pain and small scarring after surgery as surgeons use minimally invasive techniques that produce better results. Surgeries aren’t as scary as they once were as safety standards are better and the risk of infections is reduced significantly.