Deep learning HRNet FCN for blood vessel identification in laparoscopic pancreatic surgery

Laparoscopic pancreatic surgery remains highly challenging due to the complexity of the pancreas and surrounding vascular structures, with risk of injuring critical blood vessels such as the Superior Mesenteric Vein (SMV)-Portal Vein (PV) axis and splenic vein. Here, we evaluated the High Resolution Network (HRNet)-Full Convolutional Network (FCN) model for its ability to accurately identify vascular contours and improve surgical safety. Using 12,694 images from 126 laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy (LDP) videos and 35,986 images from 138 Whipple procedure videos, the model demonstrated robust performance, achieving a mean Dice coefficient of 0.754, a recall of 85.00%, and a precision of 91.10%. By combining datasets from LDP and Whipple procedures, the model showed strong generalization across different surgical contexts and achieved real-time processing speeds of 11 frames per second during surgery process. These findings highlight HRNet-FCN's potential to recognize anatomical landmarks, enhance surgical precision, reduce complications, and improve laparoscopic pancreatic outcomes.