Choosing surgical lighting in the LED era

Abstract

Background: The aim of this study is to evaluate the illumination characteristics of LED lights objectively to ease the selection of surgical lighting.

Methods: The illuminance distributions of 5 main and 4 auxiliary lights were measured in 8 clinically relevant scenarios. For each light and scenario, the maximum illuminance E(c) (klux) and the size of the light field d(10) (mm) were computed.

Results: The results showed: that large variations for both E(c) (25-160 klux) and d(10) (109-300 mm) existed; that using auxiliary lights reduced both E(c) and d(10) by up to 80% and 30%; that with segmented lights, uneven light distributions occurred; and that with colored LED lights shadow edges on the surgical field became colored.

Conclusions: Objective illuminance measurements show a wide variation between lights and a superiority of main over auxiliary lights. Uneven light distributions and colored shadows indicate that LED lights still need to converge to an optimal design.