The International Society for Fluorescence Guided Surgery announces publication of consensus on Fluorescence Guided Surgeries (FGS) in Annals of Surgery

November  19, 2020; Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA: The International Society for Fluorescence Guided Surgery (ISFGS), the leading organization dedicated to the global advancement of fluorescence-guided surgery, is pleased to announce the publication in Annals of Surgery, “Consensus Conference Statement on the general use of near-infrared fluorescence imaging and indocyanine green guided surgery: Results of a modified Delphi study”. 

“This publication confirms that fluorescence-guided surgeries will dramatically alter the way surgeries will be performed in future”, said lead author Raul J. Rosenthal MD FACS, Clinical Professor of Surgery at the Lerner College of Medicine at CWRU and Department Chairman of General Surgery at Cleveland Clinic in Weston, Florida. “We are  delighted that this eminent group of surgeons, came to the consensus that near-infrared-fluorescence-guided surgery is effective and safe across a broad variety of clinical settings and results in safer surgeries with improved outcomes for the patient ”, Dr. Fernando Dip, President of ISFGS continued.

Aided by grant funding from Diagnostic Green, Intuitive Surgical, Medtronic, Olympus, and Stryker, the publication’s findings are supported by 26 leading surgeons and experts in fluorescence-guided surgery, from 23 international institutions across five continents.

Using a Delphi survey approach, the publication was designed to assess current practices with respect to the use of fluorescence imaging, with and without Indocyanine Green (ICG), and to identify areas of consensus amongst an international panel of surgeons.

All surgeons in the study consider the use of fluorescence imaging, with or without ICG, to be both highly effective and very safe across a broad range of clinical fields and settings. All surgeons believed that the use of ICG during fluorescence-guided surgery, with and without ICG, should be part of routine surgical practice. Using fluorescence technology decreases the overall risk of a patient's perioperative care. In general, fluorescence imaging is considered an important tool for the visualization of vital anatomical structures such as arteries and veins as well as the visualization of cancerous lesions, sentinel lymph nodes, and an important tool in tissue perfusion. Over the next decade, the contributors to the publication believe that the role of fluorescence-guided surgery in clinical practice will increase and that it has the potential to dramatically alter the way that many surgical procedures are performed and will significantly enhance patient outcomes.

The publication is available via open access at the following link https://journals.lww.com/annalsofsurgery/Citation/9000/Consensus_Conference_Statement_on_the_General_Use.93976.aspx