Remote video management for intraoperative consultation and surgical telepresence.
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Date
2007-11-16
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Abstract
Telemedicine applications can connect surgeons from one operating room OR to a distant consultant The additional capacity of telepresence provides remote consultants the ability to control their own view of the surgical field using robotic management of a network camera The goal of this study was to compare access to surgical field by robotic camera versus image controlled by the surgeon using a camera mounted to the table A Stryker laparoscopic camera was attached to the OR table using a Mediflex arm and video image was transmitted with a Polycom Transfer Control Protocol TCP Internet Protocol IP connection A network Sony camera was mounted on a tripod connected over the Internet using a parallel TCP IP connection A Web interface allowed control of the camera angle and zoom In 22 consultations effective bandwidth was 800 Kbps for the network camera and 1024 Kbps for the Stryker camera The operation was thyroidectomy and the consultant was either in Moscow Russia or Bucharest Romania The quality of the image in both methods was indiscernible The ability to identify critical surgical anatomy was also indiscernible No transmission session failed or had an interruption The robotic camera can be a powerful tool for surgical collaboration