A surgical operation in which the aim is to discover the cause of a person’s symptoms or the nature and extent of an illness.
Any diagnostic procedure used to examine a portion of the body that is thought to be diseased. Exploratory surgery is an option when a medical problem exists and the exact cause, extent of disease, or treatment cannot be determined without direct examination. An example is abdominal pain, which can come from multiple causes. In some cases, determining the cause of some otherwise unexplained abdominal pain may require opening the abdomen and physically examining the organ or bowel, which may be removed or repaired during the time of the exploratory surgery.
An operation performed for diagnostic pin-poses (e.g. an exploratory laparotomy). Exploratory surgeries may become surgeries in which definitive treatment is rendered when a previously undiagnosed lesion is identified and rectified.
An exploratory surgery refers to any procedure conducted to probe or inspect a part of the body to ascertain the degree of a known disease or to establish a diagnosis. However, with technological advancements in imaging, like MRI that generates cross-sectional or three-dimensional visuals of body structures, the necessity for such surgeries has significantly decreased.