AMSTERDAM, Jan. 12, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a leader in integrated image-guided therapy solutions, today announced the development of an industry-first augmented-reality surgical navigation technology that is designed to help surgeons perform image-guided open and minimally-invasive spine surgery. Philips is a pioneer in hybrid operating room (hybrid OR) solutions to facilitate both surgical and minimally-invasive endovascular procedures, with over 750 hybrid ORs installed globally. The addition of this new augmented reality technology will further widen the scope of Philips hybrid OR solutions to other fast-growing areas of image-guided surgery including spine, cranial and trauma procedures.
Spine surgery was traditionally an 'open surgery' procedure, accessing the affected area via a large incision so that surgeons could physically see and touch the patient's spine in order to position implants such as pedicle screws. In recent years, however, there has been a definite shift to the use of minimally-invasive techniques, performed by manipulating surgical tools through small incisions in the patient's skin in order to minimize blood loss and soft tissue damage, and consequently reduce postoperative pain. Due to inherently reduced visibility of the spine during these procedures, surgeons have to rely on real-time imaging and navigation solutions to guide their surgical tools and implants. The same is true for minimally-invasive cranial surgery and surgery on complex trauma fractures.
Philips is developing a new augmented-reality surgical navigation technology, which will add additional capabilities to the company's low-dose X-ray system. The technology uses high-resolution optical cameras mounted on the flat panel X-ray detector to image the surface of the patient. It then combines the external view captured by the cameras and the internal 3D view of the patient acquired by the X-ray system to construct a 3D augmented-reality view of the patient's external and internal anatomy. This real-time 3D view of the patient's spine in relation to the incision sites in the skin aims to improve procedure planning, surgical tool navigation and implant accuracy, as well as reducing procedure times.
As part of a joint clinical research program, Philips hybrid ORs with this new capability will be installed in a network of ten clinical collaborators to advance the technology.
The results of the first pre-clinical study on the technology have been published in the prestigious SPINE journal, as a result of a collaboration between Philips, Karolinska University Hospital (Stockholm, Sweden) and the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (Cincinnati, USA). The technology was shown to be significantly better with respect to overall accuracy, compared to pedicle screw placement without the aid of Philips' augmented-reality surgical navigation technology (85% vs 64%, p<0.05).
For further information, visit http://www.philips.com