Deep learning-based automatic surgical step recognition in intraoperative videos for transanal total mesorectal excision.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study based on automatic surgical step classification for TaTME. Our deep learning model self-learned and recognized the classification steps in TaTME videos with high accuracy after training. Thus, our model can be applied to a system for intraoperative guidance or for postoperative video indexing and analysis in TaTME procedures.