Forces in surgical tools: comparison between laparoscopic and surgical forceps

Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) has given a new dimension to the field of surgery. However, there are several reports of injuries to the patient during laparoscopic surgeries that do not occur during conventional surgery. Also, the surgeons are trained in conventional surgery using conventional surgical tools. Therefore, there is a need to first quantitatively compare the laparoscopic and conventional surgical tools. The purpose of the present investigation was to determine if the forces applied on laparoscopic forceps are the same as those applied on conventional surgical forceps. The results of the study indicated that the handle forces, tip forces, and the muscle forces while manipulating laparoscopic forceps were significantly different from those while manipulating conventional surgical forceps (p/spl les/0.005).