from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
noun Surgical incision into the abdominal wall, especially into the flank.
from The Century Dictionary.
noun In surgery, incision into the abdominal cavity; abdominal section.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
noun (Surg.) A cutting through the walls of the abdomen, as in the Cæsarean section.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
noun surgery The surgical procedure for making an incision in the abdominal wall to gain access into the abdominal cavity. Performed either as exploratory surgery, or as the first step in an abdominal operation.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
noun surgical incision into the abdominal wall; often done to examine abdominal organs
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Greek laparā, flank; see laparoscope + –tomy.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From laparo- + -tomy.
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Examples
To Stone's way of thinking, McCray should have performed an operation called a laparotomy to locate and drain this abscess during Karsten's second hospitalization.
But since this approach requires a laparotomy, which is associated with longer hospitalization and increased blood loss, the postoperative road to recovery is often slow and painful as compared with less invasive approaches.
There are three medical clinics in Hallum Valley and one hospital capable of minor orthopedics, low-risk deliveries, appendectomies and a rare exploratory laparotomy if the weather is too bad to get to a city.
"If you don't like the laparotomy," Don told him at one point, referring to a line in the story, "you may choose some other operation ending in 'omy.'"
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