Digital technology allows surgeons to visualize surgery
Editor's note:
Information technology, artificial intelligence and big data are playing increasingly significant roles in health care. This series on many sectors of the health industry is intended to demonstrate the role of advanced technology, intelligent systems and new inventions.
Shot by Dong Jun. Edited by Dong Jun. Subtitles by Cai Wenjun.
Through mixed reality and digital twins technology, doctors can visualize the organ and surgery.
Dr Cheng Xinghua from Shanghai Chest Hospital demonstrates the system.
Wearing a pair of AR glasses linked to a digital system, doctors use their hands to control the image of organs in the air and insert a long needle into a lung cancer patient's chest wall.
The system has visualized the position and depth of the needle puncture to successfully locate the pulmonary nodule accurately using a green line.
Once a concept in science fiction films, the procedure is now taking place at the Shanghai Chest Hospital.
Mixed reality, digital twins and artificial intelligence are assisting doctors to carry out surgery more efficiently and impose less pain and trouble on patients.
With the development of clinical technology, minimally invasive surgery has been widely adopted in early-stage lung cancer surgery.
The worst experience of most patients now is the painful and troublesome preoperative pulmonary nodule localization.
Doctors insert a long needle under the guidance of a CT scan to enter the chest wall and locate the nodule. Patients only receive regional anesthesia and must stay still while the long needle is inserted into the chest.
Under routine practice, the patient must undergo a CT scan to locate the puncture point before surgery.
At least three medical staff must assist in the process.
At least three medical staff must participate the localization process and a nurse must follow the whole process and monitor the patient until he or she is sent to the surgery room.
The process also imposes an extra workload on the CT room.
"The anxiety and pain patients suffer during the process was the biggest motivation for my team to team up with computer engineers from Xenova, a startup company in Shanghai, to develop a digital system to solve the issue," said Dr Cheng Xinghua from Shanghai Chest Hospital's department of oncology.
"There is no longer any need to receive the CT-guided needle puncture any more. Patients are sent to the surgery room directly for a puncture under general anesthesia. It is a digital system fully developed by our doctors and engineers with complete intellectual property rights."
A doctor carries out a surgical puncture with digital guidance.
The system clearly shows the puncture route and depth with a green line.
In the procedure, doctors develop a digital twin of the patient before surgery through data of the patient. The system can produce a digital model of the patient with skin, blood vessels, tumor and all other information. The location and route of needle puncture are accurately created by the system.
Doctors can also design surgery plan and even stimulate various emergencies and adverse events during surgery to make pre-plans and pre-operative training.
"The system can even stimulate lung collapse for doctors to try different medical solutions," Cheng said.
Wearing a pair of AR glass, all the organs, blood vessels and surgery part can be seen through a 3D-holographic format, and doctors can control the model freely just by moving their hands.
The patient doesn't need to go to the CT room for preoperative localization but goes directly to surgery where the process is conducted under general anesthesia.
"The digital technology can really help reduce cost and improve efficiency and effects," Cheng said.
"By wearing the glasses, the system can show the puncture point and depth of needle we should insert into the chest wall. Then we just need to follow the guidance and the whole process is finished within one minute. The patient needn't receive radiation exposure or pain, while medical staff can save the process of going to the CT room. It really brings benefit to patients and streamlines the medical process."
Currently, the system has received five patents, and has applied for industrial applications.
"The technology can not only be used in early-stage lung cancer surgery but other surgeries, such as liver surgery, brain surgery and bone surgery to provide an immersive guidance for surgeons and improve accuracy and efficiency," Cheng said.
"For plastic surgery, the system can also forecast the result, allowing doctor and the patient to have a better understanding."
