Anesthesia in laparoscopic surgery: a review

In the last few years laparoscopic surgery requiring a different method of anesthesia from laparotomic procedures has been increasingly carried out. Since laparoscopic cholecystectomy was first described in 1985 almost all abdominal organs can now be operated on laparoscopically. At the same time the spectrum of the patients has changed from those who are young and healthy to older ones with many accompanying illnesses. Ln addition, the length of time this operations require has greatly increased. Consequently the number of critical incidents relevant to anaesthesia, during laparoscopy, has risen. Therefore new studies had been worked out which lead to a better understanding of pathophysiological changes during pneumoperitoneum.