Page 11 - Clinical Manual of Small Animal Endosurgery

Preface

In producing this book, we have been fortunate in finding contributors
who are leaders in their field, enthusiastic practitioners of endosurgery
and friends. We have ourselves been active in rigid endoscopy since the
1990s and during this time have observed a growth in the use of the
technique for both diagnosis and intervention. Rigid endoscopy makes
a contribution to the welfare of our patients by improving diagnosis and
increasingly by allowing interventions with reduced morbidity compared
to traditional open surgery. Diagnoses that would otherwise not have
been possible can now be made and techniques that would not be pos-
sible in other ways can be used. To the veterinarian, rigid endoscopy also
provides new way of looking at our patients (literally) and enhances our
understanding of diseases and their management. We confidently expect
the applications of this equipment and technique to continue to expand
over the next decade and one of our intentions with this book was to
allow practitioners to see how broadly useful the equipment is, and to
encourage them to acquire it and use it as widely as possible. This is one
reason for focusing on rigid endoscopy: much of the equipment can be
used for a variety of organ systems and species.
Bringing together any book requires the support and forbearance of
friends, colleagues and family. We gratefully acknowledge the help of
our families during the ‘gestation’ of this book, together with the assist-
ance of colleagues and the team at Wiley Blackwell. We owe a particular
thank you to the friends who agreed to become contributors and who
have delivered the excellent material that makes this book all that it is.

Alasdair Hotston Moore
Rosa Angela Ragni
April 2012