Surgeons have used a pair of mixed reality goggles to ‘see inside’ the body for the first time in a life saving operation.
The surgeons wore the goggles while performing surgery on a patient and have said that the tech allowed them to ‘see inside’ their body.
This new tech was used during an operation on 75-year-old Carol Toal at the Institute for Neurological Sciences in Glasgow.
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Toal’s op was needed in order to correct a misalignment of her spine, as well as to treat a spinal cyst and to decompress her spinal nerves.
As a result of her medical problems, she had been suffering with chronic pain in her leg and back.
During the procedure, the medics made use of the goggles’ ability to fuse x-rays with external images of the patient.
This system is called Spine Mixed Reality Navigation.
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But instead of displaying them on a screen, the images are shown on the goggles using mixed reality.
This gave the surgeons an accurate view of the body and spinal anatomy.
After recovering from the surgery, Toal described it as having been ‘life saving’ as she noticed that her chronic pain had vanished less than a week after the operation.
Mohamed Abdelsadg, who is a consultant neurosurgeon and complex spine surgeon, said: “The result is we are effectively able to see inside a patient’s body while we are performing the operation.
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“This means the surgery is much more accurate, is much less invasive, and minimizes surgical damage to other tissue.”
The Institute in Glasgow is only the third ever in the world to have used this technology.
The innovative tech was engineered by Brainlab, a medical tech firm.
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Abdelsadg went on to say: “We already do a lot of minimally invasive work using an earlier Brainlab system, so we were familiar with the set-up and this felt more like a software upgrade rather than a completely new system.
“Also, the spinal neurosurgeons arranged for three days’ training in the Institute’s Teasdale simulation suite, which allowed us to familiarize ourselves with the kit.
“This meant the technical part of the operation went well.
“Our early experience was certainly positive and we all feel this system has real potential to build on the advanced neurosurgical work we do at the institute.”
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The NHSGGC director of regional services, Susan Groom, said: “The Institute for Neurological Sciences, and services across NHSGGC, are always looking to embrace innovations that are shown to improve outcomes for our patients.”