Minimally Invasive Surgery of the Forefoot: Current Concept Review

A minimally invasive surgical technique (MIS) is any procedure that could be less invasive than open surgery used for the same purpose. Though MIS often involves small incisions or percutaneous approaches, its main goal is to achieve good therapeutic results with the least damage to functional anatomic structures. Minimal invasiveness in orthopaedic forefoot surgery, including first ray and lesser toes, with its growth over the last two decade, showed many advantages and good outcomes with the aim to obtain fewer complications due to a contained approach, shorter surgical time and exposure, lesser post-operative risk of infection, lesser pain, hospitalization and post-operative recovery time, compared with traditional open approaches. This appears particularly true for what concerns hallux valgus surgical correction. MIS techniques have proven in the literature to be reliable, providing today comparable results with traditional open approaches.