Abstract
We newly developed a flexable retractor with large contact areas and roundish corners that allows stably and safely manipulating organs in the narrow abdominal cavity. The retractor has been revised in terms of contact safety form and human finger-sized retracting surface design. Compared to earlier ones, it has a smaller retracting surface to retract targeted organs stably while avoiding unexpected physical injury to surrounding ones during laparoscopic surgery. The retracting surface enables to spread from a φ 12[mm] thin bar to 8^*6[cm^2] plane corresponding to areas of four fingers laid close which are used when surgeons make retraction of small intestine in open surgery. In addition, the head of retracting surface is formed to make all projections 120[deg] and have roundish corners to disperse and reduce risks to injure organs. In vivo experiments indicating the retractor enables to easily move away small intestine to identify a targeted rectum without causing any injury and bleeding confirm the effectiveness of the proposed design method.
