What is ultrasound-guided surgery?
Ultrasound-guided surgery is a way of operating without opening. The surgeon uses the ultrasound to locate a structure and with incisions of 1 or 2 mm, with specific instruments, passes under the skin and tissues, seeing his instruments at all times so as not to damage anything and performs the operation without opening, with minimal surgical aggression and with a much faster recovery.
What are its advantages?
The main advantages of ultrasound-guided surgery are that since we only make incisions of 1 or 2 mm, we do not open, there are no stitches, recovery is very fast, there is hardly any bleeding, there is almost no pain, and we can even perform operations on both hands or both feet at the same time. They are performed on an outpatient basis, the patient is not admitted to hospital and this means that the patient is often absent for no or very few days. This is an enormous advance and, for all this, AVANFI’s medical team has been recognized for the first time in the history of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons with several distinctions for our work and our techniques in ultra-minimally invasive ultrasound-guided surgery.
For what types of pathologies can this surgery be used?
There are already many indications for ultra-minimally invasive ultrasound-guided surgery. In the hand we operate on carpal tunnel syndrome, which is the most frequent peripheral neuropathy, with 1 mm incisions under local anesthesia. The patient moves his hands instantly. We control the position of our instruments with the ultrasound scanner. Dupuytren’s syndrome, retraction of the toes, toes that curl, epicondylitis, the famous tennis elbow or epitrocleitis, golfers’ elbow, compartment syndromes, motorcyclists’ stress syndromes, other sportsmen… In the lower limb, Morton’s neuroma, that unpleasant burning sensation and pain in the feet. Plantar fasciosis, the most frequent cause of heel pain, chronic tendinopathies of the Achilles and patellar tendon. In pediatric orthopedics it has many applications, in children with paralysis, with spasticity, we can perform almost without aggression lengthening of shrunken tendons and improve their gait with minimal aggression. All this, without stitches, with local anesthesia, with incisions of 1 or 2 mm. and on an outpatient basis without hospitalization.
Is there any risk?
There are no specific risks of ultra minimally invasive ultrasound-guided surgery; on the contrary, thanks to this minimally invasive form of surgery, we have been able to overcome contraindications. That is to say, some patients who were not considered suitable for conventional surgery can now be operated on with this new technique, with the new era of surgery, ultrasound-guided surgery.
The risks, if the surgeon does not have sufficient previous ultrasound training, may be to damage some structure as with any surgery, but on the contrary, all are advantages, there are no specific risks of this type of surgery but neither, it must be said, is it a surgery that is valid for all diseases. It has its indications.