LIVER OF THE VISIBLE MAN

Endoscopic surgery, also called minimally invasive surgery, is presume d drastically to reduce postoperative morbidity and thus to offer both human and economic benefits. For the surgeon, however, this approach leads to a number of gestural challenges that require extensive traini ng to be mastered. In order to replace experimentation on animals and patients, we developed a simulator for endoscopic surgery. To achieve this goal, a first step was to develop a working prototype, a ''standa rd patient,'' on which the informatic and microengineering tools could be validated. We used the visible man dataset for this purpose. The e xternal shape of the Visible man's liver, his biliary passages, and hi s extrahepatic portal system turned out to be fully within the standar d pattern of normal anatomy. Anatomic Variations were observed in the intrahepatic right portal vein, the hepatic veins, and the arterial bl ood supply to the liver. Thus, the visible man dataset reveals itself to be well suited for the simulation of minimally invasive surgical op eration such as endoscopic cholecystectomy. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.