Virtual intraoperative surgical photoacoustic microscopy

A virtual intraoperative surgical photoacoustic microscopy at 1064 nm wavelength (VISPAM) system was designed and fabricated by integrating a commercial type surgical microscope and laser scanning photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) with a 1064 nm pulsed laser. Based on simple augmented reality device, VISPAM could simultaneously provide 2D depth-resolved photoacoustic and magnified microscope images of surgery regions on the same vision of surgeon via an eyepiece of the microscope. The invisible 1064 nm laser removed the interruption of surgical sight due to visible laser scanning of previous report, and decreased the danger of tissue damage caused by over irradiated laser. In addition, to approach the real practical surgery application, a needle-type transducer was utilized without a water bath for PA signal coupling. In order to verify our system's performance, we conducted needle guiding as ex vivo phantom study and needle guiding and injection of carbon particles mixtures into a melanoma tumor region as in vivo study. We expect that VISPAM can be essential tool of brain and ophthalmic microsurgery.