The Usefulness of a 180° Rotatable Monitor for an Assistant to Overcome the Hand-Eye Discordance in Laparoscopic Colorectal Surgery

PURPOSE: Hand-eye discordance during laparoscopic colon surgery is an obstacle to the assistant. We evaluated the usefulness of a 180° rotatable laparoscopic monitor for the colorectal surgery assistant to overcome hand-eye discordance. METHODS: Twenty-six residents of the department of surgery (novice group, n=13; experienced group, n=13) participated in this study. They performed grasping a ring and transferring it to standing bars on a laparoscopic training kit under the conventional view and a 180° rotated monitor view. We defined successful performance when this procedure was completed in 3 minutes. RESULTS: The number of successful performance was higher under the 180° rotated monitor view than under the conventional view monitor (6.88±2.79 vs. 0.92±0.80, p<0.01). Under the 180° rotated monitor view, the experienced group had a higher number of successful performances than the novice group (8.31±2.59 vs. 5.46±2.26, p=0.009). However, no statistically significant difference was found between the two groups under the conventional view (1.23±0.93 vs. 0.62±0.51, p=0.091). CONCLUSION: This study shows the usefulness of a 180° rotated monitor view to overcome hand-eye discordance, which adversely affects the laparoscopic performance of the colorectal surgery assistant.