Research Article
Abdul-Wahed Nasir Meshikhes
Abstract
Hand assisted laparoscopic surgery (HALS) was introduced to overcome the challenging issues of totally laparoscopic procedures. It combines the advantages of open surgery - with the surgeon's non-dominant hand inside the abdomen–as well as those of minimally invasive techniques. A hand inside the abdomen does restore the tactile feedback sensation-which is lacking in laparoscopic surgery-, allows safe finger dissection and retraction, and improves hand-eye coordination. The author introduces HAL colectomy as a bridge towards totally laparoscopic colorectal surgery. This article describes how hand assisted sigmoid colectomy is performed.