LED lights are also considered to be a more "green" technology. Even though LED sources use one-half to one-third less energy than halogen bulbs, surgical lights play a small role in the overall energy consumption in the O/R, explains Walters.

"Customers aren't going to see their total energy bills decline greatly because they switch to LED lighting in the O/R," he says. "Although energy savings is a factor, it's not the major benefit of LED lighting. The major benefit is really the visual performance improvements."


Nevertheless, lower energy consumption does have another notable benefit. Regardless of what the wattage of the light source is, the design of the lights needs to accommodate the amount of heat that can get through to the patient or make other surfaces in the O/R too hot, explains Jesurun.

"As the energy efficiency continues to improve for LEDs and they surpass incandescent lights, there's less heat to manage, which makes the product overall more desirable for our customers. This, I think, is more important than the cost of the energy consumed," he says.

With higher quality and coolness of the light beam, it is no wonder LED lights are becoming the standard for surgeons nationwide.

"Halogen lamps are basically not developing at all, they're a dying breed," says Walters. "But LEDs are still rapidly improving. We and the rest of the industry are dealing with what additional value we can provide customers with the additional available light that LEDs generate," he says.

LED options

Trumpf Medical Systems is the pioneer of LED surgical lights systems. The manufacturer was the first to introduce its iLED5 surgical light to the market about five years ago. In 2008, the company introduced TruLight, and later this year, it is bringing its latest product, the TruLight ALC Plus, to the U.S. market. The new surgical light aims to help surgeons position and control the light on the surgical site with less hassle.

"The real key to this product is that it really takes a lot of guesswork out of how to position or to optimize the light because it actually automatically optimizes the illumination for the surgeon," says Palmer.

When the surgical light is moved up or down, the intensity of the light is lost, requiring the surgeon to change the pattern or refocus the light. The new feature on the TruLight ALC Plus includes a low-power laser. It sends the beam down to the surgical site and back to the lighthead, measuring the distance and telling "each of the LEDs how much to power up or power down in order to optimize the illumination at the surgical site based on that distance," says Palmer.

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