Digital recording in microsurgery - Technical note

The authors examine the quality of intraoperative photography in which digi tal recording technology, including a microdigital camera and digital video paired with an operating microscope, is used during neurosurgery. A microd igital camera developed for this purpose (1.4 million pixels) was attached to an operating microscope and used during surgery. The same surgical views with precisely the same optical conditions were taken through the microsco pe by using both a conventional 35-mm camera and the microdigital camera, a nd the quality of the final output was compared. In addition, the quality o f the digital camera photographs was compared with the still photograph cli pped from the digital video recording. The quality of the photographs taken with a microdigital camera was superio r to the quality of those obtained with the conventional 35-mm camera. The success rate of recording (what you see is what you get) was almost 100%. T he quality of the still photographs clipped from the digital video was near ly equal to those taken with the digital camera. The microdigital camera sy stem is superior to the conventional 35-mm camera in neurosurgery in terms of its success rate and the quality of the photography. It is also a space- saving system for storing the huge amount of data generated in the recordin g of surgical procedures, and the cost/performance ratio is superior to tha t of the conventional method. Digital technology including digital cameras and videos is very useful for clear recording of microsurgical procedures.