Mumbai, May 31 (IANS): The best minds in the field of laporscopic surgery came together here on Sunday to celebrate the silver jubilee of the first laparoscopic surgery in India.

On May 31, 1990, the first laparoscopic removal of gall bladder (laparoscopic cholecystectomy) was done by T.E. Udwadia, general surgery specialist at Hinduja Hospital in Mahim.

At a conference here in the presence of Health Minister J.P. Nadda, experts from all over the country deliberated on an exceptional evolution of a world-renowned surgical technique that has changed and saved millions of lives in India.

"Today, laparoscopic surgery is a widely accepted surgical technique that uses small incisions and long pencil-like instruments to perform operations with a camera," said Pradeep Chowbey, executive vice chairman of the Max Healthcare and chairman of Max Institute of Minimal Access, Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery in New Delhi who attended the event.

"Procedures such as hernia repairs, gastric bypass, bowel resection and organ removal are now routinely carried out through laparoscopy and have successfully replaced open surgery as the preferred treatment option for bariatric surgery, gallbladder stones and all types of hernia," Chowbey added in a statement.

Laparoscopic or minimal invasive surgery for gall bladder removal was introduced for the first time in France in 1989 and then in India in 1990.

In the past 25 years, the technique has reduced a patient's stay at the hospital from days to just a few hours.

"Laparoscopy has advanced sufficiently to the extent that it can be repeated for a patient who has undergone a previous laparoscopic operation," Chowbey, a Padma Shri awardee who has performed nearly 70,000 laparoscopic surgeries so far, said.

The technique began with the treatment of gall bladder removal in 1990, and is being used today to treat most of the diseases in various specialities.