40. Laparoscopic sonography

Minimally invasive instrumentation has driven the technological “revolution”. General surgeons are increasingly using advanced technology to accomplish surgical procedures. Ultrasound is currently used by surgeons to varying degrees based on geographic location, practice patterns, traditional delegation of use, and evolving procedures. While no competence in ultrasound is currently a required part of training for board certification in surgery besides FAST, simultaneously, while vastly performed by radiologists, it constitutes an everyday part of clinical pathways, and it involves every area of abdominal surgery and almost every patient. With all the latest advances in abdominal imaging in MRI, CT, functional modalities, including virtual reality embedded imaging, there is still no real time intraoperative imaging that is applicable and available at every moment during the operation. Today, only intraoperative sonography provides real-time, hands-on imaging.