title: The application of minimally invasive surgical techniques. Part I: total hip arthroplasty.
abstract: Traditional surgical approaches often involve making large skin incisions and extensively dissecting healthy tissue to access diseased anatomy. Obviously more desirable is to make smaller incisions and more focused dissections and achieve the same postsurgical outcomes. Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is gaining popularity in many orthopedic fields, but MIS techniques are not without risk. Continued use of these techniques is a topic of debate. If satisfactory alignment is satisfactory with MIS, and if the complication rates of MIS are similar to those of traditional approaches, it seems sensible to consider the less invasive approaches to enable earlier patient recovery and improve cosmesis. Skeptics claim that there is no advantage in using MIS over time-tested approaches and are concerned that MIS approaches are being implemented before being properly subjected to peer review.
authors: Resident, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of California-Davis Health System, Sacramento, California. pedicesare@aol.com.
authors: Derek F
authors: DF
authors: Amanatullah
authors: Matthew T
authors: MT
authors: Burrus
authors: Sathappan S
authors: SS
authors: Sathappan
authors: Brett
authors: B
authors: Levine
authors: Paul E
authors: PE
authors: Di Cesare
mesh_terms: D019644:Arthroplasty, Replacement, Hip / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D019060:Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures / Q000009:adverse effects*