University of Virginia Health System

Balancing Surgical Innovation

Advantages

Disadvantages

• Innovation and modifications to technique may produce generalizable knowledge in ways that formal research could not.
  
• Surgical innovation may offer a streamlined method of discovery, engendering valuable knowledge with a reduced expenditure of time, funding, and resources.
  
• Innovative techniques could be procedures that are better tailored to individual patients or groups of patients. Case-based improvements may be a preferable approach for some patients and also lead to unexpected surgical breakthroughs.

• Depending on particular surgeon's evaluation, innovative procedure may not be best course of treatment. Lack of oversight could mean innovations are not subject to redundancy assessments where they would be in research projects.
  
• Surgical innovation does not imply the same degree of scientific validity that can be gained through formal research investigations. This means surgical innovation may sometimes promote false conclusions based on a lack of significant data.
  
• The uncertainty that is associated with innovative techniques may increase the risk of unforeseen adverse results. Patients who participate in human research projects may benefit from a larger pool of subjects, increasing the likelihood of detecting negative outcomes with greater certainty as to the cause.
  
• Patients who undergo an innovative procedure receive no assurance of the protections offered from government regulations, professional norms, or IRBs, while subjects of human research projects benefit from all of these protections.