ABSTRACT
Minimally invasive surgery (MIS), also known as minimal access surgery, keyhole surgery, and endoscopic surgery, developed in the late 1980s and is regarded as one of the most important achievements in modern medicine. MIS offers tremendous advantages over conventional open surgery. The major benežts include reduced operative trauma, fewer wound complications, shorter hospital stays, and accelerated recoveries. However, MIS is more technically demanding than conventional surgery because the surgical intervention is executed remotely via two-dimensional imaging of the operative želd. As a result, a surgeon faces loss of tactile feedback, restricted maneuverability, and less efžcient control of major bleeding (Frank et al. 1997, Cuschieri 1999). Shape memory materials provide just-right solutions to many problems in the MIS arena (Yahia 2000, Yoneyama and Miyazaki 2009, Huang et al. 2010a).
