Karolinska University Hospital has deployed Philips Healthcare's new augmented-reality surgical navigation system to perform image-guided spine surgery in the facility's hybrid operating room.
Philips' surgical navigation system features high-resolution optical cameras mounted on a flat-panel x-ray detector to image the surface of the patient. The technology then combines the cameras' external view with the internal 3D augmented-reality view of the patient from x-rays to construct a 3D view of the patient's external and internal anatomy.
This real-time 3D view of a patient's spine in relation to the incision sites is designed to improve procedure planning, surgical tool navigation, and implant accuracy.
As part of the Karolinska-Philips joint clinical research program, Philips' hybrid operating rooms with surgical navigation will be installed in a network of 10 clinical collaborators. Plans are to expand the system's applications to other surgical fields such as minimally invasive surgery, cranial neurosurgery, orthopedics, and trauma.
