NIR Fluorescence-Guided Lymph Node Mapping (2D Cross-Section)

A robotic surgical console doesn't just move instruments — its endoscope camera can switch to near-infrared fluorescence imaging to reveal indocyanine-green dye pooling inside lymph nodes, guiding sentinel-node biopsies without a single extra incision. This 2D side-on cross-section models the same real physics as the 3D version: a two-compartment pharmacokinetic curve drives how much ICG has reached each node at a given time since injection, and a double-pass Beer–Lambert attenuation model (scaled by the camera's working distance) converts that concentration into an actual fluorescence signal. Tune the dose, scrub time-since-injection, pull the camera back and forth, flip into NIR mode, and drag/scroll the cross-section itself to watch which of five lymph nodes at different depths cross the clinical signal-to-background threshold and light up — exactly the judgment call a surgeon makes at the console.