700271Smart ShadowClosedGRD Proof of MarketInnovate UKMinimally invasive (keyhole) surgery has been an important development in healthcare, and uses tiny incisions made on the abdomen to introduce a camera and instruments through which the operation is performed. This avoids long scars and has been shown to result in a quicker recovery, shorter hospital stay through reduced pain, and wound complications. An example of this is the cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal), which when performed open requires 5 days in hospital, but with keyhole surgery patients can go home at day 1. There exists however, a real challenge in extending the benefits of keyhole surgery to a wider range of abdominal operations, which are technically more difficult. This is because unlike open surgery, keyhole surgery does not allow the surgeon any tactile feedback (tissues are held in instruments rather than fingers) or depth perception (the normal 3-D view is converted into a 2-D view on a video screen). The latter has been shown in research to affect the performance of key surgical tasks, translating into reduced procedural safety, increased operation time and risk of organ injury. Training new surgeons to perform keyhole surgery is also more challenging. Advances in 3-D camera and screen technology have tried to improve depth perception, however these systems are expensive (requiring the replacement of most of the capital equipment currently used) and are not well tolerated by a proportion of surgeons. This project involves developing a ‘plug in’ technology that uses existing equipment and gives the surgeon depth perception during keyhole surgery. It does so by using an additional light source to cast a shadow which is digitally enhanced by a computer into a visible shadow that is used by the surgeon to judge the distance between their instruments and the tissues. The human brain uses shadows as cues for depth perception but in keyhole surgery this shadow is lost due to the arrangement of the camera and light source in keyhole surgery