Thoracic Surgery: From 1 Different Sources
A surgical speciality concerned with operations on organs within the chest cavity. Sometimes, thoracic surgery is combined with heart surgery, in which case it is known as cardiothoracic surgery.
See MINIMALLY INVASIVE SURGERY (MIS).... keyhole surgery
See RECONSTRUCTIVE (PLASTIC) SURGERY.... plastic surgery
This is the bodies’ main lymph collecting vessel. It starts in the little collecting bladder in the abdomen (the cisterna chyli), moves up the center of the body in front of the spinal chord, alongside the esophagus and aorta to the neck, where it drains into the left subclavian vein. It drains the lymph from the entire body, except the head, right thorax and arm, which collects lymph separately and drains into the right subclavian vein. Lacking the ability to contract and expand, the thoracic duct relies on its valves and the kinetic energy of breathing and nearby arterial pumping to drain lymph upwards.... thoracic duct
Surgery done in a clinic or a hospital without an overnight stay either before or after the operation. Improvements in surgery – especially the introduction of MINIMALLY INVASIVE SURGERY (MIS) – as well as more e?ective methods of ANAESTHESIA have simpli?ed many procedures and reduced the physical and mental stress on patients. Patients undergoing day surgery should be accompanied home by a friend or relative. Occasionally a patient may develop complications that require a post-operative stay in hospital.... day surgery
A branch of surgery that treats deformities, injuries or diseases of the TEETH and JAW, as well as other areas of the face and mouth. Surgeons doing this work are usually quali?ed dentists who have done further training in oral and maxillofacial surgery.... oral surgery
An operation to remove a cancer, plus adjacent tissue and lymph nodes.... radical surgery
Surgery using a rigid endoscope passed into the body through a small incision. Further small openings are made for surgical instruments so that the operation can be performed without a long surgical incision. Minimally invasive surgery may be used for many operations in the abdomen (see laparoscopy), including appendicectomy, cholecystectomy, hernia repair, and many gynaecological procedures. Knee operations (see arthroscopy) are also often performed by minimally invasive surgery.... minimally invasive surgery
An operation to correct deformity of the jaw and the severe malocclusion that is invariably associated with it. The bones of the jaw are repositioned under general anaesthesia, and often require splinting (see splinting, dental) until they heal.... orthognathic surgery
An operation to repair arteries that are narrowed, blocked, or weakened. Arterial reconstructive surgery is most often performed to repair arteries that have been narrowed by atherosclerosis. It is also used to repair aneurysms and arteries damaged as a result of injury. (See also angioplasty, balloon; coronary artery bypass; endarterectomy.)... arterial reconstructive surgery
A type of mammoplasty.... breast enlargement surgery
Reconstructive surgery on the skin and underlying tissues that have been damaged or lost as a result of disease or injury. Congenital malformations are also remedied using reconstructive surgery. Surgeons graft healthy skin from another part of the body to repair skin damaged or destroyed by burns or injuries. New techniques are under development for growing new skin in the laboratory to be used in reconstructive surgery. Surgeons also repair damage using skin ?aps prepared in another part of the body – for example, a skin ?ap from the arm may be used to repair a badly injured nose or face. Reconstructive surgery is also used to repair the consequences of an operation for cancer of, say, the neck or the jaw. Plastic surgeons undertake cosmetic surgery to improve the appearance of noses, breasts, abdomens and faces.... reconstructive (plastic) surgery
Removal of the lens from the eye, performed to restore sight in people whose vision is impaired by a cataract. The lens is usually replaced with a plastic implant during the operation, although for young people and those with other eye disorders, a contact or spectacle lens fitted after the operation may be preferable.... cataract surgery
See otorhinolaryngology.... ear, nose, and throat surgery
See otorhinolaryngology.... ent surgery
Any operation that is carried out to investigate or examine part of the body to discover the extent of known disease or to establish a diagnosis. Advances in imaging techniques, such as MRI, have reduced the need for exploratory surgery.... exploratory surgery
See blepharoplasty.... eyelid surgery
See minimally invasive surgery.... minimal access surgery
Any operation on the heart in which it is stopped temporarily and its function taken over by a mechanical pump. The main forms of open heart surgery are correction of congenital heart defects (see heart disease, congenital), surgery for narrowed or leaky heart valves (see heart-valve surgery), and coronary artery bypass surgery. Once the pump is connected, the heart is opened, and the defects repaired. Surgical hypothermia is used to keep the heart cool and help prevent damage to the heart muscle from lack of oxygen (see hypothermia, surgical).... open heart surgery
An operation to correct a heart valve defect or to remove a diseased or damaged valve. A heart valve may have to be repaired, widened, or replaced because it is either incompetent (leaky) or stenotic (narrowed). Widening of a valve may involve valvotomy or valvuloplasty. A damaged valve can be replaced by a mechanical one (fashioned from metal and plastic), a valve constructed from human tissue, a pig valve, or a valve taken from a human donor after death. A heart–lung machine is used during replacement.After heart-valve surgery, symptoms such as breathlessness may take weeks to improve and require medication to be continued. Some people need longterm treatment with anticoagulant drugs to prevent the formation of blood clots around the new valve.... heart-valve surgery
See arterial reconstructive surgery; plastic surgery.... reconstructive surgery
See traumatology.... trauma surgery
surgery performed for the purpose of weight loss in obese patients. Most procedures are restrictive, being designed to promote feelings of fullness and satiety after meals (see gastric banding; stomach stapling). See also gastric bypass surgery; jaw wiring.... bariatric surgery
(image-guided surgery, surgical navigation) a technique by which a virtual image or map of the patient is created from CT scans, MRI scans, X-rays, or ultrasound scans and loaded into a computer. Special instruments connected to the computer are then applied to certain reference points on the patient. The computer can then produce a picture of the location of the instrument within the patient.... computer-assisted surgery
surgical procedures that can be performed in a single day, without the need to admit the patient for an overnight stay in hospital. Modern techniques of surgery and anaesthesia now enable many surgical cases of minor and intermediate degrees of severity to be treated in this way: examples include many breast lesions, dilatation and curettage, and operations for hernia and varicose veins. Special units are established in many hospitals.... day-case surgery
(ESS) surgery of the *paranasal sinuses using endoscopes. Functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS) clears inflamed tissue from routes of sinus drainage and aeration to allow the other sinuses to return to normal.... endoscopic sinus surgery
(FGCS) surgery to alter the size or shape of the *vulva and/or vagina when these are a cause of significant distress or sexual dysfunction. FGCS includes labioplasty (reduction or alteration of the labia), clitoral hood reduction (excision of excess skin in the fold surrounding the clitoris), and hymenoplasty (partial or complete reconstruction of the hymen).... female genital cosmetic surgery
(FESS) see endoscopic sinus surgery.... functional endoscopic sinus surgery
any of several procedures of *bariatric surgery that allow food to bypass parts of the gut in order to reduce absorption of nutrients and calories. Such operations often lead to greater weight loss than restrictive procedures, such as *gastric banding and *stomach stapling, but there are significant long-term complications relating to chronic malabsorption and patients must remain under long-term specialist follow-up.... gastric bypass surgery
see computer-assisted surgery.... image-guided surgery
a surgical technique used for removing primarily high-risk nonmelanoma skin cancers, particularly basal cell carcinoma. The technique allows the surgeon to see beyond the visible tumour as the specimen is removed and the histology checked in stages. At each stage, if the tumour involves the margins, further tissue is resected until they are clear. There is an extremely high cure rate. [F. E. Mohs (1910–2002), US surgeon]... mohs’ micrographic surgery
any surgical procedure that has as its primary objective the correction of any refractive error. It includes such procedures as clear lens extraction, *LASIK, *LASEK, and photorefractive *keratectomy.... refractive surgery
a type of laparoscopic surgery in which the operating surgeon controls the instruments via a robot. The surgeon sits at a console away from the patient and controls the robot’s operating arms.... robotic surgery
the chest cavity. See thorax.... thoracic cavity
the 12 bones of the *backbone to which the ribs are attached. They lie between the cervical (neck) and lumbar (lower back) vertebrae and are characterized by the presence of facets for articulation with the ribs. See also vertebra.... thoracic vertebrae
(TORS) a form of robot-assisted surgery used for treating difficult-to-access tumours of the pharynx and larynx.... trans-oral robotic surgery
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