Spectroscopic Characterization Of Biliary Tract Tissues In-vivo To Assist Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy

Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy is a surgical method for removal of gallbladder when it is diseased with gall stones. Almost 750,000 people are affected with this disease annually in USA. Gall bladder is removed by placing an incision on the cystic duct. This duct is totally embedded in fat (which is a few mm thick) in most of the cases and it becomes a huge problem decreasing the visual capability of the surgeon to distinctly locate the duct.
Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) can solve the fuzziness as it penetrates in a few mm thick tissues. NIRS is one of the simplest techniques for studying the physiological properties of the biological tissue. Light delivered into the tissue undergoes multiple scattering and absorption, and reflects back carrying quantitative information. Light attenuation in the Near Infrared Red (700-900nm) region is relatively less by tissue chromophores thus allowing to study their variation in this wavelength region.