Surgeons performing complex vascular surgeries such as aneurysm clipping or vascular anastomoses could benefit if instantaneous information on blood flow in their surgical field was made available to them. Current technologies that can monitor blood flow at high resolution either engage complex dedicated equipment or rely on administration of contrast agents, both of which are disruptive to the surgical procedure and hence, undesired. We propose a novel method that can noninvasively provide real-time information about blood flow in the surgeon?s field of view at the spatial scale of microvessels. This modular optical imaging system (called the SurgeONTM) will integrate with existing surgical microscopes in operating rooms providing the surgeon-user an on-demand video feed of blood flow information to assist in surgical decision-making. This complementary blood flow information will be obtained using proprietary and licensed laser speckle contrast imaging technology, and optionally presented to the surgeon in his/her visual field overlaid on the region of interest. During Phase I, we assembled a preclinical prototype and successfully demonstrated proof of concept in rodent models of brain and femoral vasculature. Our proposed Phase II project aims to develop novel features that significantly amplify the utility of the device for microsurgical applications, and perform a robust validation of the system in large animal models. We anticipate the results of our Phase II project to facilitate submission of performance data to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for market clearance.
Surgeons could greatly benefit from the availability of real-time high resolution blood flow information while performing complex surgeries such as the clipping of brain aneurysms. The goal of our project is to develop a modular optical imaging system that will add blood flow monitoring capability to surgical microscopes installed in operating rooms and provide surgeons this complementary information about their surgical field of view.
