The ASERF Scientific Research Committee and Board of Directors are pleased to announce the following grant award:

Researcher: Ross Sayadi, MD

Grant Award: ASERF Interim Grant

Amount Awarded: $6,670

Project Name: New Innovation For Projected Flap Design

Project Summary: Markings for planning incisions in plastic and reconstructive surgery are most commonly drawn free-hand and to the surgeon’s best estimate, leading to potential mistakes that can lead to increased procedure time and patient risk. We believe that using a projector to project images of prefabricated surgical markings will serve as a more effective method for surgical planning.

We aim to create a mobile application compatible with smart devices like the iPad, iPhone, or Android phones and tablets that will contain a database of existing designs for flap reconstruction. In addition, we plan on overlaying each flap on a thermal camera image of the local blood supply.

Surgeons will be able to choose a prefabricated flap and customize the parameters to a particular patient using touch technology on a smart device. The wireless image projector will then project the flap and thermal blood supply from the smart device onto the patient to serve as a template for efficient and reliable incision planning. Additionally, this technology can also serve as an educational tool for residents allowing them to gain mastery drawing flaps.

It is hypothesized that planning surgical incisions can be made more precise and reliable by using a projected image as a template for surgeons to draw markings.