History of laparoscopic surgery

Laparoscopic surgery, whose development has been so impressive in the last decade, was initially introduced at the beginning of this century hy Dimitr i Ott, Georg Kelling and Hans Christian Jacobeus. Von Ott inspected the abd ominal cavity of a pregnant woman in 1901 and afterwards Georg Kelling perf ormed a procedure, called "koelioscopie", closer to the definition of moder n laparoscopy. In the same year Jacobeus published his first report of what he called "Laparothorakoskopie". In the following years several authors in Europe and in the United States performed laparoscopic procedures for diag nostic purposes. It was only with the introduction of the rod-lens optical system and of the cold light fiber-glass illumination that laparoscopy beca me more popular especially in the gynecologist departments. At this time la paroscopy in general surgery was mainly performed for the diagnosis of live r disorders and abdominal trauma, until the intuition of Lukichev in 1983 a nd Muhe in 1985 who performed their personal technique of laparoscopic chol ecystectomy in humans. Their rudimental techniques did not receive the atte ntion they probably deserved and increasing interest in laparoscopy among g eneral surgeons developed only after the French gynecologist Mouret perform ed in 1987 the first acknowledged laparoscopic cholecystectomy by means of four trocars. Operative laparoscopy has advanced surprisingly in the last t en years. Several operative procedures have been performed by this new appr oach. After its tumultuous debut, laparoscopic surgery is now entering a ph ase of slower development and nowadays it is impossible to predict the imme diate and long-term evolution of the technique.