Ergonomics in Laparoscopic Surgery

Despite the many advantages for patients, laparoscopic surgery entails certain ergonomic inconveniences for surgeons, which may result in decreasing the surgeons’ performance and musculoskeletal disorders. In this chapter, the current status of ergonomics in laparoscopy, laparoendoscopic single‐site surgery (LESS), and robot‐assisted surgery will be reviewed. Ergonomic guidelines for laparoscopic surgical practice and methods for ergonomic assessment in surgery will be described. Results will be based on the scientific literature and our experience. Results showed that the surgeon\u27s posture during laparoscopic surgery is mainly affected by the static body postures, the height of the operating table, the design of the surgical instruments, the position of the main screen, and the use of foot pedals. Ergonomics during the laparoscopic surgical practice is related to the level of experience. Better ergonomic conditions entail an improvement in task performance. Laparoscopic instruments with axial handle lead to a more ergonomic posture for the wrist compared to a ring handle. LESS is physically more demanding than conventional and hybrid approaches, requiring greater level of muscular activity in the back and arm muscles, but better wrist position compared with traditional laparoscopy. Physical and cognitive ergonomics with robotic assistance were significantly less challenging when compared to conventional laparoscopic surgery

Handheld Devices for Laparoscopic Surgery

Despite the well-known benefits of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) to the patients, this surgical technique implies some technical challenges for surgeons. These technical limitations are increased with the introduction of laparoendoscopic single-site (LESS) surgery. In order to overcome some of these technical difficulties, new handheld devices have been developed, providing improved functionalities along with precision-driven and articulating instrument tips. In this chapter, we will review the current status of handheld devices for laparoscopy and LESS surgery. Devices that provide additional and innovative functionalities in comparison with conventional surgical instruments will be considered. Results will be based on studies published in the scientific literature and our experience. These surgical devices will be organized into two main groups, mechanical devices and robotic-driven devices. In general, these instruments intend to simulate the dexterity of movements of a human wrist. Mechanical devices are cheaper and easier to develop, so most of the available handheld instruments fall into this category. The majority of the robotic-driven devices are needle holders with an articulating tip, controlled by an interface implemented on the instrument handle. In general, these handheld devices claim to offer an enhancement of dexterity, precision, and ergonomics

Wearable Technology for the Validation of Surgical Systems and Surgical Assistance

Advances in sensors, internet of things and artificial intelligence are allowing wearable technology to constantly evolve, making it possible to have increasingly compact and versatile devices with clinically relevant and promising functionalities in the field of surgery. In this sense, wearable technology has been used in various fields of clinical and preclinical application such as the evaluation of the surgeon's ergonomic conditions, the interaction with the patient or the quality of the intervention, as well as surgical planning and assistance during the intervention. In this work we will present different types of wearable technologies for their application in the validation of surgical devices in minimally invasive surgery, and their application in assisting the surgical process. Within these technologies we will show electrodermal activity and electrocardiography devices to monitor the surgeon’s physiological state, and electromyography and motion analysis systems to study his/her ergonomics during the surgical practice. Apart from these systems, the introduction of extended reality technology (virtual, augmented, and mixed reality) has fostered the emergence of new immersive and interactive tools to assist in the planning of complex surgical procedures, surgical support and telementoring. As we can see, the application of wearable technology has a high impact on the validation of surgical systems in minimally invasive surgery, including laparoscopic surgery, microsurgery, and surgical robotics, as well as in the assistance of the surgical process, with the consequent benefit in the quality of patient care

Laparoscopic Pancreas Surgery: Image Guidance Solutions

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Surgery is the only viable treatment, but irradical resection rates are still high. Laparoscopic pancreatic surgery has some technical limitations for surgeons and tumor identification may be challenging. Image-guided techniques provide intraoperative margin assessment and visualization methods, which may be advantageous in guiding the surgeon to achieve curative resections and therefore improve the surgical outcomes. In this chapter, current available laparoscopic surgical approaches and image-guided techniques for pancreatic surgery are reviewed. Surgical outcomes of pancreaticoduodenectomy and distal pancreatectomy performed by laparoscopy, laparoendoscopic single-site surgery (LESS), and robotic surgery are included and analyzed. Besides, image-guided techniques such as intraoperative near-infrared fluorescence imaging and surgical navigation are presented as emerging techniques. Results show that minimally invasive procedures reported a reduction of blood loss, reduced length of hospital stay, and positive resection margins, as well as an improvement in spleen-preserving rates, when compared to open surgery. Studies reported that fluorescence-guided pancreatic surgery might be beneficial in cases where the pancreatic anatomy is difficult to identify. The first approach of a surgical navigation system for guidance during pancreatic resection procedures is presented, combining preoperative images (CT and MRI) with intraoperative laparoscopic ultrasound imaging

Advanced Ergonomics in Laparoscopic Surgery

Applied ergonomics is very important in minimally invasive surgery (MIS), especially with the introduction of robotized techniques that have changed the surgeons’ work conditions. However, the main aim remains the engineering to enable the compatibility of fulfillment of surgeons’ tasks in a physical, logical, and organizational environment with security, comfort, and efficiency. Ergonomics contribution is oriented both to design and redesign utilized material and to work organization. Epidemiological studies have shown the appearance of musculoskeletal pathologies in surgeons performing MIS; therefore, it is relevant to identify the intensity, frequency, and duration of risk factors (posture, repeatability, level of effort, touch pressure, and vibration if relevant) associated with this profession. A further relevant consequence of the effort applied during MIS is local muscle fatigue (LMF), an important factor to consider in musculoskeletal pathologies. The aim of this chapter is to present different methodological approaches by employing most advanced technologies to define the most appropriate posture that surgeons should adopt during MIS to decrease LMF apparition risk level and at the same time to increase capacity to variate the posture without reducing the precision task performance

Unravelling the effect of data augmentation transformations in polyp segmentation

Purpose: Data augmentation is a common technique to overcome the lack of large annotated databases, a usual situation when applying deep learning to medical imaging problems. Nevertheless, there is no consensus on which transformations to apply for a particular field. This work aims at identifying the effect of different transformations on polyp segmentation using deep learning. Methods: A set of transformations and ranges have been selected, considering image-based (width and height shift, rotation, shear, zooming, horizontal and vertical flip and elastic deformation), pixel-based (changes in brightness and contrast) and application-based (specular lights and blurry frames) transformations. A model has been trained under the same conditions without data augmentation transformations (baseline) and for each of the transformation and ranges, using CVC-EndoSceneStill and Kvasir-SEG, independently. Statistical analysis is performed to compare the baseline performance against results of each range of each transformation on the same test set for each dataset. Results: This basic method identifies the most adequate transformations for each dataset. For CVC-EndoSceneStill, changes in brightness and contrast significantly improve the model performance. On the contrary, Kvasir-SEG benefits to a greater extent from the image-based transformations, especially rotation and shear. Augmentation with synthetic specular lights also improves the performance. Conclusion: Despite being infrequently used, pixel-based transformations show a great potential to improve polyp segmentation in CVC-EndoSceneStill. On the other hand, image-based transformations are more suitable for Kvasir-SEG. Problem-based transformations behave similarly in both datasets. Polyp area, brightness and contrast of the dataset have an influence on these differences.This work was partially supported by PICCOLO project. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 732111. The sole responsibility of this publication lies with the author. The European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein

Deep learning to find colorectal polyps in colonoscopy: A systematic literature review

Colorectal cancer has a great incidence rate worldwide, but its early detection significantly increases the survival rate. Colonoscopy is the gold standard procedure for diagnosis and removal of colorectal lesions with potential to evolve into cancer and computer-aided detection systems can help gastroenterologists to increase the adenoma detection rate, one of the main indicators for colonoscopy quality and predictor for colorectal cancer prevention. The recent success of deep learning approaches in computer vision has also reached this field and has boosted the number of proposed methods for polyp detection, localization and segmentation. Through a systematic search, 35 works have been retrieved. The current systematic review provides an analysis of these methods, stating advantages and disadvantages for the different categories used; comments seven publicly available datasets of colonoscopy images; analyses the metrics used for reporting and identifies future challenges and recommendations. Convolutional neural networks are the most used architecture together with an important presence of data augmentation strategies, mainly based on image transformations and the use of patches. End-to-end methods are preferred over hybrid methods, with a rising tendency. As for detection and localization tasks, the most used metric for reporting is the recall, while Intersection over Union is highly used in segmentation. One of the major concerns is the difficulty for a fair comparison and reproducibility of methods. Even despite the organization of challenges, there is still a need for a common validation framework based on a large, annotated and publicly available database, which also includes the most convenient metrics to report results. Finally, it is also important to highlight that efforts should be focused in the future on proving the clinical value of the deep learning based methods, by increasing the adenoma detection rate.This work was partially supported by PICCOLO project. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 732111. The sole responsibility of this publication lies with the author. The European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Federico Soria for his support on this manuscript and Dr. José Carlos Marín, from Hospital 12 de Octubre, and Dr. Ángel Calderón and Dr. Francisco Polo, from Hospital de Basurto, for the images in Fig. 4

Educational models for training in minimally invasive colorectal surgery

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most commonly diagnosed malignancy and the fourth most deadly cancer in the world for which surgery is the main treatment. Colorectal surgery can be performed through a wide incision in the abdomen or using minimally invasive surgical (MIS) techniques. Some of these techniques include transanal endoscopic microsurgery (TEM ), transanal minimally invasive surgery (TAMIS), transanal total mesorectal excision (TaTME ), and robot-assisted surgery. Studies increasingly confirm that resections using MIS techniques are safe, oncologically equivalent to open surgery and have better short-term results. These surgical approaches are, however, technically demanding and result in a steep learning curve. The main objective of this study is to review the different MIS techniques for colorectal surgery, as well as the training tools and programs designed to achieve the necessary surgical skills. Different training programs in colorectal surgery have been reported for the different surgical techniques analyzed. Most of these programs are based on training tools in the form of surgical simulators, physical and virtual, as well as the use of experimental and cadaveric models. However, structured training programs in minimally invasive colorectal surgery remain scarce, and there should be a consensus on the fundamental training aspects for the various surgical techniques presented. These training programs should ensure that surgeons acquire sufficient surgical skills to be competent in the development of these surgical techniques, improving the quality of the patient’s surgical outcomes.Rak jelita grubego (RJG) jest trzecim co do częstotliwości rozpoznawania nowotworem złośliwym na świecie, a także czwartą przyczyną zgonów na nowotwory złośliwe. Głównym elementem leczenia RJG jest operacja, którą można wykonać przez rozległe nacięcie powłok lub za pomocą technik minimalnie inwazyjnych. Do tych drugich należą: endoskopowa chirurgia transanalna (TEM ), przezodbytowa chirurgia minimalnie inwazyjna (TAMIS), przezodbytowe całkowite wycięcie mezorektum (TaTME ) oraz chirurgia wspomagana robotowo. Analizy danych potwierdzają, że techniki minimalnie inwazyjne są bezpieczne, równie skuteczne onkologicznie co techniki tradycyjne, a także wiążą się z szybszym powrotem chorych do pełnej sprawności. Ich wspólną cechą są niestety wysokie wymagania techniczne oraz długa krzywa uczenia. W artykule omówione zostały różne techniki minimalnie inwazyjne stosowane w leczeniu RJG oraz metody nauczania tych technik. Jak dotąd opracowano wiele sposobów szkolenia dla różnych technik operacyjnych. Większość opiera się na symulatorach chirurgicznych zarówno rzeczywistych, jak i wirtualnych oraz na wykorzystaniu modeli eksperymentalnych i preparatów z ludzkich zwłok. Niestety usystematyzowane modele szkolenia w minimalnie inwazyjnej chirurgii RJG są nadal rzadkością. Widać wyraźnie potrzebę opracowania konsensusu dotyczącego szkolenia w poszczególnych metodach operacyjnych. Tego rodzaju programy powinny zapewnić uczestniczącym w nich chirurgom zdobycie wiedzy pozwalającej na skuteczne wykonywanie zabiegów w celu zapewnienia pacjentom jak najlepszych efektów leczenia

Evaluation of Wedged Arterial Injection as a New Technique for Delivery of Experimental Therapeutic Sustances into the Porcine Pancreas

Objectives. To prospectively evaluate the technical feasibility and efficacy of wedged arterial injection (WAI) as a potential route for experimental selective therapy to the pancreas of healthy pigs. Materials and Methods. Selective angiographies were completed in ten pigs under general anaesthesia. By superselective angiography, the catheter was inserted and wedged into the major pancreatic artery, blocking the blood flow. In order to evaluate the efficacy of the WAI method, a DNA-specific fluorescent dye (Hoechst 33258) was used. Results. Histological study revealed a uniform distribution of the fluorescent dye within the nuclei of the endocrine and exocrine pancreatic cells. Pancreatic and liver enzymes as well as histopathology of the pancreas were normal. Conclusion. WAI is a highly effective minimally invasive methodology to target the porcine pancreas. The findings suggest that WAI may contribute to developing preclinical assays of pancreas gene or cell-transfer therapies in swine model