Ergonomics and Assistance in Keyhole Surgery (1992 - 2004)

The clinical introduction of new technologies in surgical therapy has changed the traditional intraoperative procedures especially in terms of visual information available for the surgical team. The direct view on the operating site is more and more replaced by indirect visual information on the basis of optical systems and displays. Especially in endoscopic minimal access surgery the surgeon is decoupled from the operating site and a high quality and reliability of realistic visual spatial information is crucial. The use of stereoscopic systems potentially provide an improved visual feedback for spatial manipulations, but the real impact of 3D-visualisation systems strongly depends on its implementation and boundary conditions within clinical applications.