Surgeons will control patients' heart beat with their eyesight

The software will synchronise the movement of the heart to the surgeon's eyes with all elements moving to the same rhythm, making the organ appear unmoving.

The scientists involved, who include health minister Lord Darzi, a keyhole surgery pioneer, will use cameras to track how the surgeon refocuses on "fixation points" as the heart expands and contracts.

This will help the surgeon use a robot to operate, determining "depth perception" and precise dimensions of the moving heart to make "beating heart" surgery less risky.

It will also reduce the complications associated with stopping a heart to carry out an operation.

With cardiac surgery, such as a coronary bypass, the heart is normally stopped and a heart-lung bypass machine is used to oxygenate and circulate blood during the procedure.

Professor Darzi said the new software was in development, with clinical use planned within the next 18 months.

He said it used sophisticated "motion compensation" to track the complex movement of soft tissue.

"It is like looking out the window of a car driving at 70mph and seeing another car travelling alongside at the same speed, and apart from the wheels, it has the appearance of being stationary," he said. "It allows surgery to be carried out more effectively and precisely."

It is one of a number of developments which could help surgeons reduce the physical and psychological trauma associated with operations.

Other techniques include the "iSnake", a robotic snake that can manoeuvre through orifices to avoid creating external incisions. Another involves an "augmented reality" programme superimposing scans of the patient's body, taken before an operation, onto visuals seen by the surgeon, allowing the doctor to "see" behind tissue and organs. Tens of thousands of prostate, heart and other procedures are already being performed by robots and greater reliance on surgical machines is likely in the future, with their precision reducing trauma and speeding recovery.

Lord Darzi has pioneered a series of operating techniques that will revolutionise heart surgery in the next 10 years. He was recruited by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to join his "government of all the talents" in June 2007 after carrying out a review of the health service in London, in which he called for a reform of the city's health service and recommended "supersize" polyclinics.