Laparoscopic pyeloplasty is a kidney surgery that will both remove the offending obstruction that is stopping the natural flow of urine out of the body and repair any damage that has occurred due to high fluid pressures deforming the ureters and kidney. The difference between the classical open pyeloplasty performed by cutting open an area of the midsection with a hole that has the ability to allow not only instruments, but hands to perform the surgery at the same time, the hole also needs to be large enough for the hands and instruments to not block the view while working in the operating site. For this reason (such a large surgical incision and scar) the idea and eventually the research, clinical trials and medical approval was granted for laparoscopic surgery.

Laparoscopic pyeloplasty has the ability to perform whatever an, open pyeloplasty needs to do. There can also be benefits to using Laparoscopic pyeloplasty such as your stay in the hospital will be shorter, and since there will be less blood loss there could be less blood transfusions. Two other benefits include less chance for infection and less scaring. While less scaring of your body does affect the rest of your life, what other benefits are gained by Laparoscopic pyeloplasty are less pain and less over all time to heal. It was with these features, which have come to fruition, that laparoscopic surgery was created.

The caveat was the transition from traditional open pyeloplasty kidney surgery to laparoscopic pyeloplasty that left many surgeons out of the loop. When this laparoscopic surgery started it took many surgeries to learn how to perform the surgery with out looking directly into the surgical site and how to manipulate surgical instruments. But many surgeons saw the possible benefits and became part of the paradigm shift that altered surgery forever.

Laparoscopic pyeloplasty was just another surgery to incorporate into the new small incision surgeries. Unfortunately this did not happen over night, it took years, for surgeons in many fields, to acquire the skills needed, that brought medicine to a new standard. While it sounds like laparoscopic pyeloplasty may be the answer it was not always the case. Success rates for open pyeloplasty are near 95% which is a great statistic. For laparoscopic pyeloplasty to achieve that success rate it would take not only a long time but very few surgeons were initially skilled enough to get success rates of 95%.

Laparoscopic pyeloplasty continued and more and more urologists became trained bringing improved rates in blood loss, healing time, hospital costs, and of course less pain and infection. The advantage of open pyeloplasty is less surgical time which is an important factor on the very young, the elderly or those with medical conditions.