Keyhole surgery may also be called minimally invasive surgery, or laparoscopic surgery when it is applied to the abdominal cavity.

The essential difference between keyhole surgery and conventional surgery is the avoidance of large wounds. Instead of making a wound big enough to insert the surgeon's hands, telescopes attached to video cameras enable the surgeon to view the inside of the body. Similarly, specialised telescopic instruments have been developed to allow the surgeon to manipulate tissues.

Although this sometimes makes an operation technically more complex, there are many occasions when the view obtained using telescopes is better than during conventional surgery.

For many operations, I think it is now unwise to recommend conventional surgery, as the benefits to the child of keyhole surgery are so great. The operations which I would always recommend keyhole surgery for include fundoplication, pyloromyotomy, splenectomy (see the link to a video of a splenectomy on the right), cholecystectomy and colectomy.