Minimally-invasive procedures (also known as
minimally-invasive surgeries) have been enabled by the advance of various
medical technologies.
Surgery by definition is invasive and many operations requiring
incisions of some size, are referred to as
open surgery. Incisions made can sometimes leave large wounds that are painful and take a long time to heal. Minimally-invasive surgery refers to surgical techniques that limit the size of incisions needed and so lessens
wound healing time, associated pain and risk of infection. An
endovascular aneurysm repair as an example of minimally-invasive surgery is much less invasive in that it involves much smaller incisions, than the corresponding open surgery procedure of
open aortic surgery. This minimally-invasive surgery became the most common method of repairing
abdominal aortic aneurysms in 2003 in the United States.