title: Novel endoscope system with plasma flushing for off-pump cardiac surgery.
abstract: The purpose of this study is to develop a new endoscope for performing simple surgical tasks inside a cardiac atrium/chamber filled with blood, i.e., for performing "off-pump" cardiac surgeries. In general, it is very difficult to observe the inner wall of the vessels containing circulating blood because the light from the endoscope is scattered by the red blood cells. "Plasma flushing" performed using the separator system is developed to observe the inner side of the heart filled with blood and to remove blood cells from the front of the endoscope tip. The system was used in in vitro quantitative measurement of the device performance and in vivo experiments on a swine. In these experiments, we successfully obtained high-resolution images of the interior of the heart during off-pump surgery.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo. masa@i.u-tokyo.ac.jp
authors.forename: Ken
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Masamune
authors.forename: Tetsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Horiuchi
authors.forename: Masahiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mizutani
authors.forename: Hiromasa
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yamashita
authors.forename: Hiroyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tsukihara
authors.forename: Noboru
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Motomura
authors.forename: Shinichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Takamoto
authors.forename: Hongen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.forename: Takeyoshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Dohi
mesh_terms: D047549:Coronary Artery Bypass, Off-Pump / Q000295:instrumentation*; D019723:Endoscopes; D004866:Equipment Contamination / Q000517:prevention & control*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005740:Gases; D006358:Hot Temperature; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013242:Sterilization / Q000295:instrumentation*
chemical_list: D005740:Gases