A form of surgery in which damage to skin and adjoining tissues is kept to a minimum. The technique makes use of endoscopic imaging  that displays images of the field of operation on TV monitors (e.g. laparoscopes to look into the abdominal cavity or arthroscopes to look into a joint cavity), allowing the surgeons to work with specialised instruments through small, stab incisions rather than having to create a large surgical wound to view the field of operation.