Video-Enabled Medical Software for Surgical Tissue Differentiation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional medical imaging devices in minimally invasive surgeries suffer from limited imaging resolution, poor visibility, and inadequate lighting, which hinders surgeons' ability to differentiate between biological tissues and monitor tissue health during surgical procedures.
Innovation Solution
A medical software tools platform that integrates enhanced data analysis using a surgical display to provide medically-oriented applications, enabling features like image processing, measurement, and collaboration tools to enhance surgical visibility and tissue differentiation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If conventional medical imaging devices are used in minimally invasive surgeries, then the surgical procedure can be performed with minimal incisions, but the imaging resolution is limited and tissue differentiation is poor
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an image processing system as an intermediary between the surgical camera and the display. This system applies various image processing algorithms (enhancement, filtering, segmentation) to the raw image data, thereby improving tissue differentiation and imaging resolution without changing the physical constraints of the minimally invasive surgical approach.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs multiple image processing techniques that change parameters of the image data including contrast enhancement, brightness adjustment, sharpening filters, and segmentation algorithms. These parameter changes transform the raw low-resolution images into enhanced images with improved tissue differentiation and visual clarity.
2Reliability
If the surgical compartment is confined to minimize incisions, then patient safety is improved, but visibility and lighting for the surgeon deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The image processing system acts as an intermediary that compensates for the poor lighting and visibility conditions in the confined surgical compartment. By applying enhancement algorithms and adjusting image parameters, the system improves the visual information available to the surgeon without requiring better physical lighting conditions inside the body.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates an enhanced visual copy of the surgical field that is displayed on high-resolution monitors. This digital copy provides superior visibility and illumination compared to the actual confined surgical environment, allowing the surgeon to see tissue details that are not visible through the endoscope alone.
3Device complexity
If a single medical imaging device is used to minimize device complexity, then the surgical procedure is simplified, but multiple perspectives of biological tissue cannot be provided
Solution Approach 1:
The image processing system is designed to handle multiple types of image data from a single surgical camera, applying different processing algorithms for different surgical needs. It can provide various perspectives through image enhancement, segmentation, and analysis functions, making the single device system as versatile as multiple devices would provide.
Solution Approach 2:
The system adds the dimension of image processing and analysis to the single imaging device. By processing the image data through multiple algorithms and presenting enhanced views, it creates virtual multiple perspectives from the single physical camera, enabling multi-angle and multi-aspect visualization without adding physical devices.
4Illumination intensity
If visible lighting is used to illuminate the surgical field, then tissue can be imaged, but differences in biological tissue are not sufficiently shown
Solution Approach 1:
The image processing system applies parameter changes to compensate for the limitations of visible lighting. Through contrast enhancement, histogram equalization, and selective brightness adjustment, the system recovers and emphasizes tissue differentiation information that was lost or obscured in the original illuminated images.
Solution Approach 2:
The image processing system serves as an intermediary that recovers and enhances tissue differentiation information that was not adequately captured by the visible lighting system. It processes the illuminated images to reveal subtle tissue variations that the original lighting conditions failed to display.
Data Source
AI summary
Medical software tools platform utilizes a surgical display to provide access to specific medical software tools, such as medically-oriented applications or widgets, that can assist those in the operating room, such as a surgeon or surgical team, with a surgery. In particular, an optical sensor located within an endoscopic camera may register the momentary change in the optical characteristics reflected from a tissue surface and in turn transmit the information to a medical image processing system which can also receive patient heart rate data and display relevant anomalies. Changes in various spectral components and the speed at which they change in relation to a source of stimulus (heartbeat, etc.) may indicate the arrival of blood, contrast agents or oxygen absorption. Combinations of these may indicate various states of differing disease or margins of tumors, and so forth. Also, changes in temperatures and the speed of change may indicate subsurface anomalies.