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sitional phase. It's always crystal clear.
3. Added efficiency
The idea that articulation will produce better surgical outcomes by broadening the field of vision is intuitive, of course, but as yet unproven. The articulating scopes are too new for there to have been any definitive studies.
But there is one area where I can say for certain that the new scopes are providing better outcomes: They save time. And if you have a safe outcome in a shorter amount of time, that's a better procedure.
With conventional scopes, you often have to flip back and forth among the various scopes to visualize different angles. You might find yourself swapping out instruments every 30 seconds, every minute, every 5 minutes — however often you need a different view. That can add a significant amount of time to a procedure and be pretty cumbersome.
4. Space savings
For single-site surgery, the articulating scope is a lifesaver. If you have everything going into a single port, it can be impossible to do surgery because of instrument "sword-fighting." So you need to find ways to create space. With conventional scopes, the easiest way to do that is to push the camera up, and look down, so you keep the camera out of the way of your articulating instruments. When we use the articulating scope, we're able to create space by simply deflecting the camera tip.
5. Improved ergonomics
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PRODUCT SHOWCASE Sharona Ross, MD, test
drives Olympus's new articulating laparoscope at
last year's SAGES conference.
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