Note: For an industry sector report on OR lighting, read the September 2008 issue of DOTmed Business News, now online.

An exclusive DOTmed.com briefing on the flagship offerings of leading OR lighting manufacturers

If you've ever gotten dressed in the morning only to go outside and discover that you're wearing one blue and one black sock, you've just experienced the difference between natural lighting and the limits of halogen. To overcome these flaws, manufacturers of halogen surgical lights typically filter out the yellowish wavelengths to correct color and approximate white light. Other filters reduce the heat output into the surgical field.
But there is a better way--light-emitting diodes or LED lighting.

"With LED, you don't generate infrared or UV so you don't have to filter those things out--it's more efficient inherently. And because you don't have to color-correct it, you can design it with a broad spectrum to enable you to visualize colors in all those different wavelengths and see the difference between a dark blue or black, or in our case between subtle shades of red," explained Chris Walters, Senior Product Manager for Surgical and Critical Care Technologies, STERIS Corporation, Mentor, OH.

STERIS's design is an all-white LED (as opposed to an RGB design in which the LED combines red, green, and blue elements.)

"Most manufacturers have gone to the same technique we have, which is an all-white LED. The advantage is that the light sources are all the same, so no matter how you block it, it doesn't cast a shadow, and your spot size remains consistent," Walters said.

STERIS Harmony® LED Lighting and Visualization System

STERIS Corporation provided details on features and benefits of its cutting-edge system. The Harmony LED Surgical Lighting and Visualization System delivers 160,000 lux to the surgical field, which the company says is up to 41% more illuminance than other LED lights.

The design uses those single-color, phosphor-coated LED sources to create a white, natural light without the rainbow effects of multi-colored bulbs. Benefits include high intensity, exceptional deep-cavity illumination and color rendition, outstanding R9 value for true red color rendition, adjustable spot size and excellent shadow control. The system has an R9 value 37% better than halogen for visualization of details in tissue. Using 84 lenses (LED sources), light is delivered from many angles to reduce shadows and provide consistent spot regardless of obstructions. This is achieved through diamond turned tooling of overlapping lenses that are accurately fitted to one millionth of an inch. The result overcomes a problem associated with conventional LED design - shadows in the surgical field caused by obstruction of the light.

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