Exploratory Surgery

Exploratory surgery is surgery carried out to look inside the body to help diagnose an ailment, used when non-surgical diagnostic methods have failed to identify the problem. In humans it has most commonly been done through a laparotomy, an abdominal incision, though it is now often done through laparoscopy, using a camera and small incisions, or through endoscopy, both less invasive than an open incision; it has been used to identify conditions such as cancer, gallstones, appendicitis, ectopic pregnancy and other gastrointestinal disorders, and can include taking a biopsy during the operation. Since the 1970s, imaging technology such as CT and MRI has sharply reduced its use in human medicine, with the number of exploratory laparotomies in the United States falling from about 85,000 in 1993 to about 35,000 in 2006, but it remains more common in veterinary medicine, where imaging equipment is more costly and less available than surgical exploration.