Improving color appearance of organ in surgery by optimally designed LED illuminant

When surgeons resect and reconstruct a hollow organ in an abdominal surgery, it is necessary to judge whether the organ to be transplanted is healthy or not. Although the condition of the organ is reflected to the color and appearance, the difference is sometimes subtle. This judgment is done based on experience and a sense of surgeons. Technologies supporting the visual diagnosis should be developed. Optimally designed illuminant based on properties of human visual system may clarify the color difference of the attention area. On the other hand, since conventional operations are conducted under the white shadowless light source, it is not preferable that color of the optimal illuminant is different from that of white shadowless light. In this paper, for the purpose of clarifying the blood circulation, the optimal white illuminant is designed by combining some kinds of LEDs. The reflectance spectra of internal organs were collected from a pig’s small intestine. The spectral reflectance was also calculated from images captured by a multispectral camera which have many narrowband filters. The calculated spectral reflectance of the small intestine is used for the design of the optimal LED illuminant. It was found that the optimal illuminant can clarify the blood circulation better than the conventional illuminant.