Minimal-access aortic surgery: the potentials of hand-assisted laparoscopy

In analogy with the good results of laparoscopic abdominal procedures minimal-access aortic surgery looks very promising. However, in spite of the many technical improvements that have already been made, totally laparoscopic and even laparoscopically assisted aortic surgery remains technically demanding. This explains the rather slow introduction of minimal-access aortic surgery in the vascular society. In anticipation of increasing surgical experience and better instrumentation that will make the technique feasible for each vascular surgeon, hand-assisted laparoscopy (HALS) can be a valuable intermediate approach. HALS offers an easy to perform and still clearly less invasive approach for all aorto-iliac reconstructions.