Choosing surgical lighting in the LED era.
BACKGROUND
The aim of this study is to evaluate the illumination characteristics of LED lights objectively to ease the selection of surgical lighting.


METHODS
The illuminance distributions of 5 main and 4 auxiliary lights were measured in 8 clinically relevant scenarios. For each light and scenario, the maximum illuminance E(c) (klux) and the size of the light field d(10) (mm) were computed.


RESULTS
The results showed: that large variations for both E(c) (25-160 klux) and d(10) (109-300 mm) existed; that using auxiliary lights reduced both E(c) and d(10) by up to 80% and 30%; that with segmented lights, uneven light distributions occurred; and that with colored LED lights shadow edges on the surgical field became colored.


CONCLUSIONS
Objective illuminance measurements show a wide variation between lights and a superiority of main over auxiliary lights. Uneven light distributions and colored shadows indicate that LED lights still need to converge to an optimal design.
Knulst
Arjan J
AJ
Department of BioMechanical Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands. a.j.knulst@tudelft.nl
Stassen
Laurents P S
LP
Grimbergen
Cornelis A
CA
Dankelman
Jenny
J
D006801:Humans; D008029:Lighting / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D013523:Surgical Equipment