|Publication number||US7800820 B2|
|Application number||US 11/772,393|
|Publication date||Sep 21, 2010|
|Filing date||Jul 2, 2007|
|Priority date||Jun 30, 2006|
|Also published as||US20080123183|
|Publication number||11772393, 772393, US 7800820 B2, US 7800820B2, US-B2-7800820, US7800820 B2, US7800820B2|
|Original Assignee||Richard Awdeh|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (12), Referenced by (2), Classifications (5), Legal Events (1)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 to U.S. Provisional patent application No. 60/817,478, filed 30 Jun. 2006, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.
1. Field of Endeavor
The present invention relates to devices and systems useful as surgical microscopes.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Microscopes, including surgical microscopes used in the operating room in human and animal surgery, and laboratory microscopes, offer the user a magnified, stereoscopic view of the selected field. While these microscopes are successful in providing a magnified view to the user, they do not allow for the simultaneous view of data, including both real-time streaming data and non-real time data, into the viewer's field (see
Most microscopes include two eyepieces, one for the right eye and one for the left, and both are focused on the same field (usually with separate light paths, thus creating a stereoscopic, three-dimensional view). The final image seen by the user of the microscope is fused from the right and left eyepieces to form a single view which is a circle 12, which is referred to herein as the “microscope field”. This circle is surrounded by an area of “black space” 10 which is included in the final image seen by the user of a microscope, the combination of which creates the “viewer's field”. This single microscope field and black space is derived from the fusion of two images (one seen by the right eye and one by the left eye).
The black space 10 is not currently utilized in microscope designs. In the application of surgical microscopes, the utilization of this space in a novel way would allow for real-time intra-operative feedback (including real time and non-real time data, as described in further detail below) to appear in the black space and be viewed by the surgeon in real-time during surgery, but no such devices are currently available.
In the specialty of ophthalmic surgery, the surgeon currently operates by looking through the eyepieces of a surgical microscope, thus viewing the surgical field (in this case, a patient's eye) in higher magnification. This surgical field equates to the microscope field as described above and is surrounded by a black space, ultimately creating the viewer's field as described above. However, the use of microscopes has historically created a problem for surgeons as their access to, and view of, data while operating is limited to whatever image appears in the viewer's field. In the aforementioned example of ophthalmic surgery, the devices used by the surgeon during surgery are inserted into the eye and connected to external machinery that drives the devices. Each of these devices has various parameters (e.g., vacuum power, cutting speed, aspiration, etc.) that are controlled by foot pedals operated by the surgeon's feet. Each of these parameters, which must be continuously monitored during the surgery, change in real time (i.e., in numerical values) and are currently displayed on one or more external displays, which is not in direct sight of the surgeon while he or she is looking through the microscope to operate.
As such, the current technology does not provide surgeons with real time access to parameters that are important to the surgery while they are looking through the surgical microscope. This leaves surgeons to rely on a nurse or other assistant to continually read the parameters from the external display device out loud to the surgeon. Further, under the current technology, the surgeon is unable to simultaneously view a magnetic resonance image (MRI), computed tomography image (CT), or any other image or piece of data from a patient's medical record, while he or she is looking through the microscope while operating. This prevents the surgeon from viewing essential data and from evaluating diagnostic studies while he or she is operating, creating a further limitation with the use of microscopes in surgery and elsewhere.
According to a first aspect of the invention, a microscope comprises a stack of optical elements defining at least one lightpath, a viewing field, and a blackspace around the viewing field, and at least one image generation device positioned at least partially in the at least one lightpath and configured to project at least one image into at least one of a portion of the black space and a portion of the viewing field.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a microscope comprises a stack of optical elements defining at least one lightpath, and at least one image generation device positioned at least partially in the at least one lightpath and external to the stack, the at least one image generation device configured to project at least one image into the lightpath.
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, a method of forming an image to a user of a microscope comprises conducting light from an object along at least one lightpath through the microscope to define a viewing field and a blackspace around the viewing field, and simultaneously projecting at least one image into at least one of a portion of the black space and a portion of the viewing field.
Still other aspects, features, and attendant advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from a reading of the following detailed description of embodiments constructed in accordance therewith, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
The invention of the present application will now be described in more detail with reference to exemplary embodiments of the apparatus and method, given only by way of example, and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
Referring to the drawing figures, like reference numerals designate identical or corresponding elements throughout the several figures.
In the context of this application, reference will be made to one or more lightpaths, which indicates the path that light follows from a source, e.g., an object being viewed by a microscope, towards an endpoint. For ease of reference, the term ‘upstream’ will refer to the direction along the lightpath toward the source, and the term ‘downsteam’ will refer to the opposite direction, i.e., along the lightpath away from the source.
In general terms, the invention in this application relates to the display of data, graphics, and video, both dynamic and static, inside any microscope such that the user can simultaneously view the microscopic field as well as monitor data parameters. Principles of the present invention can be applied in the setting of any microscope, including surgical microscopes and laboratory microscopes. Through the utilization of the black space, as well as the viewer's field, by embedding image creation devices into the microscope that displays a variety of images, a user of the microscope can better concentrate on the field of view, e.g., the surgical field, without having to look away from the microscope.
By embedding image generation or image projection (display) technology into the microscope, devices adhering to principles of the present invention can enable the user of the microscope, e.g., a surgeon, to continuously monitor data, e.g., patient data, including real-time operative parameters streamed from surgical instruments including those used in vitreo-retinal surgery (including by not limited to vitrector, vitreous-cutting scissors, light pipes, injectors) and those used in cataract surgery (including but not limited to phacoemulsification power, ultrasound power, vacuum power, aspiration power and irrigation power) as described herein, as well as other sets of patient data (including imaging studies such as MRI, CT, Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), Flourescien Angiography (FA) and medical records) in the black space 10 and/or the microscope view of the specimen 12. According to particularly preferred and advantageous embodiments, embedding organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays (or any other display material including light emitting diodes (LEDs), liquid crystal displays (LCDs), active and passive matrix displays and all types of OLED devices, including transparent (top- emitting) OLEDs, foldable OLEDs, and any organic electroluminescent display) (individually and collectively referred to herein as a “display”) into a microscope such that the image or images generated by the display device appears in the black space 10 and/or the surgical field view 12, directly at the eyepieces of the microscope or in the microscope stack (including any portion along the tube, as illustrated in
By way of example, the ability of a surgeon to monitor device parameters in real time while operating on a patient could revolutionize ophthalmic (and other subspecialty) surgeries. External feeds of data to a microscope of the present invention could include those from surgical instruments, video feeds, MRI, CT, x-ray feeds, and, in the area of ophthalmic surgery, Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), Flourescein Angiography (FA), and other imaging modalities of the eye. Microscopes embodying principles of the present invention can allow the user to constantly monitor and record external parameters while examining and manipulating a specimen in the microscope field. Particularly advantageously, such a microscope can provide a surgeon with real-time, intra-operative feedback during surgeries.
Turning now back to the drawing figures,
In addition to the view 12 of the, e.g., surgical field, and the black space 10, provided by the optical elements of the microscope, one or more data images 14, 16, 18, 20 are produced in the view provided to the user, thus permitting the user to maintain concentration on the object(s) on which the microscope is trained. By way of non-limiting example, these images can include one or more of the vacuum pressure, vit speed, distance to the retina, and various still or moving images, such as an OCT picture, MRI image, CT scan image, and the images representative of data from the other sources described herein. The present invention is not limited to a particular shape of the one or more data display areas; thus, while rectangular-shaped areas have been illustrated, any shape, including those with and without borders, are within the scope of the present invention. Further optionally, the image display can be projected into the blackspace 10, superimposed onto the microscope field 12, or both.
With reference to
An environment in which a microscope 100 of the present invention is advantageously used is generally illustrated in
With reference to
In a particularly advantageous embodiment, the image display device includes a transparent or top-emitting OLED (TOLED) positioned in one or both of the light pathways coming through the microscope, rather than being positioned to project the image data only into the blackspace 10. This set of embodiments allows the user, e.g., a surgeon, to maintain his/her view of the surgical field through one eyepiece while the other eyepiece will display the data settings on a TOLED overlaying the surgical view in that light pathway. The two (left, right) images will be fused by the user to create a unified single image that displays both the surgical view (from one eyepiece) and the data view (from the other eyepiece).
In yet another embodiment, schematically illustrated in
While the invention has been described in detail with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that various changes can be made, and equivalents employed, without departing from the scope of the invention. The foregoing description of the preferred embodiments of the invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed, and modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of the invention. The embodiments were chosen and described in order to explain the principles of the invention and its practical application to enable one skilled in the art to utilize the invention in various embodiments as are suited to the particular use contemplated. It is intended that the scope of the invention be defined by the claims appended hereto, and their equivalents. The entirety of each of the aforementioned documents is incorporated by reference herein.
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|U.S. Classification||359/368, 359/387|