tivating as they may be, will not stand up to scientifically based studies and comparisons. Professional realism, a sense of economics, and ethical convictions plead in favor of cooperative guided studies by surgeons with the requisite experience and authority. The more meticulous the evaluation, the more likely one will recognize the true utility of a new technique. Our goal is to enable systematic education and training and to provide accurate information on the current state of the art and science. Surgeons who are not yet experienced in these tech­niques would be ill advised to abandon their conventional, time-honored, and battle-proven skills and wisdom for what may be a desirable novel activity, unless they acquire the neces­sary education, training, and support. New techniques do not necessarily mean new indications. Pro­ven and accepted surgical principles do not have to be re­assessed or questioned. Minimally invasive surgery will supple- ment conventional procedures and replace some of them, but not make them superfluous. These innovations in technique are being developed under the aegis of traditional surgery. Conver­sion to a traditional procedure is always possible, at times man­datory, where a minimally invasive approach is temporarily or permanently contraindicated. Therefore competence in tradi­tional skills and concepts remains a part of the surgeon’s re­quired expertise and is both basic and equivalent to his or her new talents in minimally invasive surgery. A harmonious co­habitation based on various levels of integration, adaptable to all surgical specialties and also to the corresponding interven­tion-oriented medical specialties, will streamline our means and efforts and prepare for a rational, system-oriented ap­proach to disease and patient care. Looking toward the future, we may well find that the lessons learned by reducing surgical trauma and postoperative pain through minimally invasive techniques will help improve conventional procedures. Such a carryover effect presupposes that the two techniques are re­garded as equivalent parts of a whole. Since laparoscopic and thoracoscopic surgery have become part of everyday clinical practice, our task is to present both widely accepted and newly emerging indications. We present detailed illustrations of the surgical technique available to satisfy various operative indications. In portraying the current state of development, we emphasize the clinical and technical ex­perience required of the surgeons with the hope of providing optimal criteria for education and practice so as to maintain and ameliorate safety and quality in the surgical environment, im­prove the economics of patient care, and be satisfied only with the highest ethical standards. This professional and moral high ground is assured by the surgeon who possesses the necessary skills, has learned the new methods, and is certain and secure in his or her level of proficiency. In light of the favorable potential of minimally invasive surgery, we would like to repeat what is probably the most frequent sentence in this book: Conversion to an open procedure is not a complication!