A novel method for artery detection in laparoscopic surgery

Abstract Background  One of the most important difficulties in laparoscopic surgery is intraoperative blood vessel detection. An accidental injury to a blood vessel may cause serious complications and could result in changing from a laparoscopic procedure to open surgery. Moreover, differentiating arteries from veins is necessary in all surgical cases. In this study we evaluate a new image-processing method for artery detection that would be useful during laparoscopic and endoscopic procedures. It is possible to install the program on any ordinary laparoscopy set and it displays the artery’s region on the monitor.