Real Time Noninvasive Monitoring of Blood Flow During Surgery

ABSTRACT 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 themCurrent technologies that can monitor blood flow at high resolution either engage complex dedicated equipment or rely on administration of contrast agentsboth of which are disruptive to the surgical procedure and henceundesiredWe 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 microvesselsThis modular optical imaging systemcalled the SurgeONTMwill 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 makingThis complementary blood flow information will be obtained using proprietary and licensed laser speckle contrast imaging technologyand optionally presented to the surgeon in his her visual field overlaid on the region of interestDuring Phase Iwe assembled a preclinical prototype and successfully demonstrated proof of concept in rodent models of brain and femoral vasculatureOur proposed Phase II project aims to develop novel features that significantly amplify the utility of the device for microsurgical applicationsand perform a robust validation of the system in large animal modelsWe anticipate the results of our Phase II project to facilitate submission of performance data to the United States Food and Drug AdministrationFDAfor market clearance