Sensing and avoiding surgical equipment
First Claim
1. A method comprising:
- illuminating, by a light source, a portion of a surgical environment, wherein the surgical environment comprises tissue subject to a surgical intervention involving one or more surgical instruments, wherein the one or more surgical instruments include a surgical laser;
receiving light from the illuminated portion of the surgical environment;
determining a spectrographic content of the received light;
determining whether the illuminated portion of the surgical environment contains a portion of the tissue or a portion of a non-biological foreign body based on the spectrographic content of the received light and in response to a determination that the illuminated portion of the surgical environment contains a portion of a non-biological foreign body, controlling the surgical laser to avoid interaction with the illuminated portion of the surgical environment.
0 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A surgical imaging system includes a light source configured to illuminate a portion of a surgical environment and a light sensor configured to receive light from the illuminated portion in response to the illumination. The surgical imaging system determines spectrographic content of the received light and uses the determined spectrographic content to identify the illuminated portion of the surgical environment; for example, to determine that the portion contains a surgical instrument, a foreign body, a suture, a particular type of tissue, a blood vessel, and/or a fluorescent marker. This identification of the illuminated portion of the surgical environment could be used to implement a surgical intervention. For example, a surgical laser could be operated, based on such generated identification information, to ablate cancerous tissue in the surgical environment that is marked with a fluorophore while avoiding ablating any sutures or surgical instruments disposed in the surgical environment.
63 Citations
15 Claims
-
1. A method comprising:
-
illuminating, by a light source, a portion of a surgical environment, wherein the surgical environment comprises tissue subject to a surgical intervention involving one or more surgical instruments, wherein the one or more surgical instruments include a surgical laser; receiving light from the illuminated portion of the surgical environment; determining a spectrographic content of the received light; determining whether the illuminated portion of the surgical environment contains a portion of the tissue or a portion of a non-biological foreign body based on the spectrographic content of the received light and in response to a determination that the illuminated portion of the surgical environment contains a portion of a non-biological foreign body, controlling the surgical laser to avoid interaction with the illuminated portion of the surgical environment. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
-
-
15. A method comprising:
-
illuminating, by a light source, a portion of a surgical environment, wherein the surgical environment comprises tissue subject to a surgical intervention involving one or more surgical instruments, wherein the one or more surgical instruments include a surgical laser; receiving light from the illuminated portion of the surgical environment; determining a spectrographic content of the received light; determining whether the illuminated portion of the surgical environment contains a portion of the tissue or a portion of a non-biological foreign body based on the spectrographic content of the received light, wherein determining whether the illuminated portion of the surgical environment contains a portion of the tissue or a portion of a non-biological foreign body based on the spectrographic content of the received light comprises identifying a target tissue in the illuminated portion of the surgical environment based on the spectrographic content of the received light; and in response to identifying the target tissue, emitting light from the surgical laser to the target tissue.
-
Specification