|
Specialist
News
Job
Listings
Book
Service
Subscribe
Register
Feedback
|
Specialist
News
Technology boosts keyhole
surgery
The latest miniaturised technology has been
attached to probes to give the best view ever to surgeons performing
tricky keyhole operations.
The endoscopes used in keyhole
procedures have been rigged with high definition television (HDTV) cameras
inside the patient to pass back quality television pictures which are
shown on a screen in the operating room.
The surgeon uses these
pictures to navigate around the maze of internal organs and other
structures in the body, and find exactly the right place to make an
incision.
Although keyhole operations are not without their own
risks, they can offer shorter stays in hospital, and quicker recovery
times to patients.
Previously, the latest high definition cameras
were too large and expensive to be placed right at the end of the
endoscopes. Instead, the endoscope works like a telescope, with a viewer
at the surgeon’s end – normally, a camera is attached here to relay
pictures to a television monitor.
Dr Steven Palter, assistant
professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Yale School of Medicine in the
US, told a conference this week that he had carried out five operations
using the new probes. He said the sharpness of the picture fed back to the
surgeon was double that of current technology.
He said:
“High-definition television provides more than double the previous
resolution, from less than 500 lines to more than 1,000 lines.
“It’s like looking through a window. It’s that clear.
“When
you use HDTV in surgery, you can see tiny details and structures that were
not visible before.
“We believe that this will translate into
increased accuracy, decreased errors and decreased surgeon fatigue, which
are the advantages of the HDTV system.”
A UK surgeon experienced
in endoscopic surgery, John Calvert from Swansea’s Singleton Hospital,
said that provided enough money was spent on good quality existing
technology, the picture that could be achieved was “better than the naked
eye”.
“I can’t really see the full advantages of having the camera
‘on the business end’ of the endoscope, if that is what is happening
here.” (BBC)
click
here to return to News Headlines Page
OPPORTUNITIES is
published by:
Newton Mann
Limited
Stretton Road, Tansley, Matlock, Derbyshire DE4
5GE.
Tel: +44 (0) 1629 583941 - Fax: +44 (0) 1629 580479
Email: info@opps.co.uk
|
