Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 4, 2025
Establishment of a Simple and Effective Rat Model for Intraoperative Parathyroid Gland Imaging
Published on: August 17, 2022
Comparing intraoperative parathyroid identification based on surgeon experience versus near infrared autofluorescence
Giju Thomas1, Carmen C Solórzano2, Naira Baregamian2
1Vanderbilt Biophotonics Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37235, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37235, USA.
Background:
Near infrared autofluorescence (NIRAF) detection has previously demonstrated significant potential for real-time parathyroid gland identification. However, the performance of a NIRAF detection device - PTeye® - remains to be evaluated relative to a surgeon's own ability to identify parathyroid glands.
Methods:
Patients eligible for thyroidectomy and/or parathyroidectomy were enrolled under 6 endocrine surgeons at 3 high-volume institutions. Participating surgeons were categorized based on years of experience. All surgeons were blinded to output of PTeye® when identifying tissues. The surgeon's performance for parathyroid discrimination was then compared with PTeye®. Histology served as gold standard for excised specimens, while expert surgeon's opinion was used to validate in-situ tissues.
Results:
PTeye® achieved 92.7% accuracy across 167 patients recruited. Junior surgeons (<5 years of experience) were found to have lower confidence in parathyroid identification and higher tissue misclassification rate per specimen when compared to PTeye® and senior surgeons (>10 years of experience).
Conclusions:
NIRAF detection with PTeye® can be a valuable intraoperative adjunct technology to aid in parathyroid identification for surgeons.
