Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Surg. Mar 27, 2024; 16(3): 641-649
Published online Mar 27, 2024. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v16.i3.641
Indocyanine green: The guide to safer and more effective surgery
Pietro Fransvea, Maria Michela Chiarello, Valeria Fico, Maria Cariati, Giuseppe Brisinda
Pietro Fransvea, Valeria Fico, Giuseppe Brisinda, Emergency Surgery and Trauma Center, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS, Rome 00168, Italy
Maria Michela Chiarello, Department of Surgery, Azienda Sanitaria Provinciale di Cosenza, Cosenza 87100, Italy
Maria Cariati, Department of Surgery, Azienda Sanitaria Provinciale di Crotone, Crotone 88900, Italy
Giuseppe Brisinda, Department of Abdominal and Endocrine Metabolic Medical and Surgical Sciences, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A Gemelli IRCCS, Rome 00168, Italy
Author contributions: Fransvea P, Chiarello MM and Brisinda G designed the research; Fransvea P and Cariati M performed the research; Fransvea P and Fico V analyzed the data; all the authors wrote and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no competing interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Giuseppe Brisinda, MD, Professor, Surgeon, Department of Abdominal and Endocrine Metabolic Medical and Surgical Sciences, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A Gemelli IRCCS, No. 8 Largo Agostino Gemelli, Rome 00168, Italy. gbrisin@tin.it
Received: December 19, 2023
Peer-review started: December 19, 2023
First decision: January 15, 2024
Revised: January 15, 2024
Accepted: February 8, 2024
Article in press: February 8, 2024
Published online: March 27, 2024
Processing time: 94 Days and 2.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Indocyanine green is a sterile, anionic, water-soluble molecule, which was approved for clinical use in 1959 by the Food and Drug Administration. After intravenous injection, indocyanine green rapidly bounds to plasma lipoproteins. When injected outside blood vessels (e.g., into the normal tissue close to tumors), indocyanine green binds to proteins, reaching the nearest lymph node usually within 15 min. The intraoperative usage of indocyanine green has become common in a variety of surgical specialties and transplant surgery. By observing the signal using a fluorescence imaging video system, surgeons can visualize and assess organ perfusion intraoperatively while making adjustments in real-time.