Surgical instruments with sensors for detecting tissue properties, and systems using such instruments

Abstract From the Canadian patent

A system is provided that furnishes expert procedural guidance based upon patient-specific data gained from surgical instruments incorporating sensors on the instrument's working surface, one or more reference sensors placed about the patient, sensors implanted before during or after the procedure, the patient's personal medical history and patient status monitoring , equipment. Embodiments include a system having a surgical instrument with a sensor for generating a signal indicative of a property of a subject tissue of the patient, which signal is converted into a current dataset and stored. A processor compares the current dataset with other previously stored datasets and uses the …