The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be to make laparoscopic and robotic assisted abdominal surgery safer for patients, and less costly for the healthcare system. Though a somewhat rare complication, inadvertent bowel injury during the more than 15 million laparoscopic procedures performed annually can be catastrophic for patients resulting in extended hospitalization, multiple corrective surgeries, lifelong medical complications, and, in more than 5% of cases, death. In addition, the direct costs associated with this complication can be substantial including intensive care convalescence and the potential for litigation given the nature of damages suffered by patients. Intraoperative detection of bowel injuries during surgery provides a simple, yet elegant solution enabling immediate repair and avoidance of negative outcomes. This project?s commercial potential includes availability in more than 49,000 operating suites and an addressable market of $750 million per annum. The proposed innovation will significantly enhance patient safety, reduce costs associated of corrective care, and generate revenue from U.S. based manufacturing.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to enable intraoperative detection of bowel injuries by identifying gases typically sequestered to the interior of the gastrointestinal tract. To accomplish this, these target gases must be sufficiently differentiable from background gases and other agents typically present during laparoscopic or robotic surgery. Such background agents present a meaningful technical challenge in that they present the potential for false positive detection results. Characterization of all potentially present agents will be completed such that they can be sufficiently differentiated from target gastrointestinal gases. A high precision gas chromatography system and custom fabricated chamber replicating surgical conditions including temperature, pressure, humidity and gas flow rate will be used to precisely identify and distinguish all potentially present gases. Once all potentially cross-reactive gases are characterized, a combination of physical filtration and algorithmic signal processing will be used to ensure proper differentiation/recognition of gas species and avoidance of potential false positive results.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
