Video-rate multispectral imaging in laparoscopic surgery: First-in-human application
This work addresses the problem of slow and complex multispectral imaging in operating rooms, enabling real-time clinical applications for surgeons, though it is incremental as it builds on existing technology.
The researchers tackled the challenge of applying multispectral imaging in surgery by developing a system that integrates a snapshot camera with a laparoscope, achieving video-rate imaging at 25 Hz with 16 spectral bands, and demonstrated its potential to detect perfusion changes in human patients during partial nephrectomy.
Multispectral and hyperspectral imaging (MSI/HSI) can provide clinically relevant information on morphological and functional tissue properties. Application in the operating room (OR), however, has so far been limited by complex hardware setups and slow acquisition times. To overcome these limitations, we propose a novel imaging system for video-rate spectral imaging in the clinical workflow. The system integrates a small snapshot multispectral camera with a standard laparoscope and a clinically commonly used light source, enabling the recording of multispectral images with a spectral dimension of 16 at a frame rate of 25 Hz. An ongoing in patient study shows that multispectral recordings from this system can help detect perfusion changes in partial nephrectomy surgery, thus opening the doors to a wide range of clinical applications.