Quality of lighting has a great impact on the success rates of surgeries, especially during complex procedures involving deep or narrow surgical cavities.
Dr. Antonio Frena, a specialist in general surgery at Central Hospital Bolzano, Italy, talks about how use of Vivo Surgical’s KLARO™ in vivo lighting device has made his job easier by providing a flexible and reliable source of illumination.
A light in the darkness
Central Hospital Bolzano is the largest hospital in the Italian province of South Tyrol, accommodating 800 beds and providing a full suite of surgical specialities, including general, oncology and vascular procedures. Dr. Antonio Frena is the hospital’s Chief of General Surgery, and specialises in liver surgery, with more than 30 years of experience. Getting enough light during procedures is often problematic in his work, which frequently involves deep surgical cavities. Traditionally, this has been overcome by combining overhead theatre lighting with a surgical headlamp to target a specific area inside the orifice. However, using this approach it is both difficult and time consuming to achieve good lighting, requiring frequent adjustments or even an additional member of staff whose sole responsibility was to position the lamp. Dr. Frena explained: “Getting enough light during liver surgery can often be challenging, especially when operating on the hepatic vein and vena cava as it is tricky to illuminate the upper abdomen just below the diaphragm. We therefore decided to start using KLARO™, which proved to be a powerful tool – especially during Sg7 liver segmentectomy – allowing us to illuminate areas that are hard to reach using conventional surgical lighting options.”
One tool, many uses
KLARO™ can be easily attached to any surgical retractor, and its flexible LED tip – which is only 4.6 mm in diameter – can provide four different light intensities. Furthermore, this tool offers a wide angle of illumination, covering 155° when unbent and expanding to 340° if the tip is curved. This adaptability makes KLARO™ well suited for a wide range of different surgical applications. Dr. Frena added: “I really like the flexibility of KLARO™, the way you can bend the tip, and the intensity of the light that it provides. We have mostly been using KLARO™ during open liver surgeries, but I can imagine that it will be very useful in other procedures, for example in laparoscopic surgeries, where it can still be difficult to reach certain areas, even if the light is generally good.”
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