Abstract
Purpose :
Aging causes lens yellowing, resulting in reduced color vision. As a result, one surgical video can be watched differently by younger and older surgeons. We have developed an age-specific color correction method in which surgeons of different age groups can watch surgical videos on displays the same as younger surgeons do, considering age-related lens yellowing. In this study, we asked cataract surgeons of different age groups to watch color-corrected surgical videos, evaluated and reviewed their vision using questionnaires.
Methods :
The subjects were 23 cataract surgeons, 40 ± 8.6 (28-60) years old. A surgical video (approximately 20 seconds) of phaco-chop during a cataract surgery performed by a surgeon in his 30s using a 3D digital visualization system (ZISS ARTEVO 800, Carl Zeiss Meditech, Jena, Germany) was used as the original video image. We used the original video image and additionally 5 color-corrected video images which surgeons in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s can watch the same as those in their 30s can do. The subjects were asked to look the 3D monitor under the same conditions as the ones during actual surgery (dark room, wearing 3D glasses, 1.2m distance to the monitor) and to select the best video image they thought in terms of (1) ease of surgery, (2) natural appearance, (3) ease of nuclear segmentation, and (4) ease of seeing the tip of the instruments.
Results :
"Visibility of the tip of the instrument" showed a significant correlation between the age of the subjects and the age of the selected video images (p=0.0149, r=0.5008). No significant correlations were found for the other items "ease of surgery", "natural appearance", and "ease of nuclear segmentation".
Conclusions :
Image correction that takes aging into account has improved "the visibility of the tip of the instrument" in nucleus phaco-chop segmentation.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.