With augmented reality technology, the real-time image displayed on the screen is combined with the data obtained by fluoroscopy. The possibility of using this technique in endoscopic surgery has been widely discussed. However, despite the potential of this field, it is still very underdeveloped. One of the factors is the lack of integrated systems that do not need to be supplemented and modified in order to be able to work with augmented images.

The software and technical equipment of the Philips system are designed, among other things, to solve this problem as well. The complex is equipped with an X-ray unit and high-resolution optical cameras, and the image displayed on the screen is already undergoing all the necessary processing. Philips devices using augmented reality technology passed the first preclinical tests at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm and at the Medical Center of the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. According to the findings, published in the journal Spine, the accuracy of the surgeries performed increased by more than 20%.

The developed unit has been highly praised by surgeons. “The new technology gives surgeons the ability to obtain high-quality 3D images of the patient’s spine during surgery and helps plan the optimal course of the intervention. Doctors can place the transpedicular screws more accurately… It is also possible to assess the result of the intervention in 3D directly in the operating room,” commented Dr. Skulason of Landtspitali University Hospital in Reykjavik.

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The example of test prosthesis built by 3D printer

3D printing has been used in medicine since the early 2000s, when the technology was first used to make dental implants. Since then, the use of 3D printing in medicine has expanded significantly: Doctors from around the world describe ways to use 3D printing to produce ears, skeletal parts, airways, jawbone, eye parts, cell cultures, stem cells, blood vessels and vascular networks, tissues and organs, new drug forms, and much more.

Using model files for 3D printing provides an opportunity for sharing work among researchers. Instead of trying to reproduce parameters described in scientific journals, physicians can use and modify off-the-shelf 3D models. To that end, the National Institutes of Health established the 3dprint.nih.gov exchange in 2014 to facilitate the exchange of open-source 3D models for medical and anatomical products, non-standard equipment and mockups of proteins, viruses and bacteria.

Neuroanatomical models printed on a 3D printer can be particularly useful for neurosurgeons, providing insight into the most complex structures in the human body, which in principle cannot be obtained based on two-dimensional images.

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