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Surgeons given their own view of a laparoscopic task, rather than a shared one, can work more efficiently and accurately, a small new study suggests.
What makes laparoscopic surgery “minimally invasive”—instruments enter the patient through narrow tubes—also makes it visually constraining. As they work on different tasks, surgeons all see the same view. What if each surgeon could control a separate view best suited to the specific task?
In one small in vitro trial, surgeons with their own views performed faster and more accurately. The idea of giving each surgeon control of his or her own point of view during laparoscopic surgery has emerged as a key step toward making laparoscopic surgery feel more like open surgery.
To conduct the study, a team gathered 20 surgeons of different experience levels to take on two standardized training tasks. Gazing at wall-mounted monitors, each pair would perform each task once using a shared view from one camera and once using individual laparoscopes and therefore their own individually controlled images. The order in which each pair performed the tasks was determined randomly.
The research team meanwhile measured the speed and accuracy of each pair’s performance as they worked. The results were an increase in speed, reducing the task time to 245 seconds on average using individual views, compared to 409 seconds with the shared view.
This innovation, with more testing, could move doctors closer to bringing individually and jointly controllable views and their apparent benefits into the operating room.