First Liver Surgery with Tablet Computer in Germany

Theese are images from Germany of a liver surgery, one of the first surgeries of its kind in the country with the support of a tablet computer to access and visualize planning data. The tablet uses augmented reality, which allows the liver to be filmed with an iPad and overlaid during an operation with virtual 3D models reconstructed from the real organ. 

Developed by Fraunhofer MEVIS in Bremen, this procedure helps locate critical structures such as tumors and vessels and is expected to improve the quality of transferring pre operational resection plans into actual surgery. 

Professor Karl Oldhafer, chief physician of general and visceral surgery at Asklepios Hospital Hamburg-Barmbek, and his colleagues removed two tumours from a patient’s liver using an iPad in a three-hour-long surgery that took place last week, Reuters reported.

“I couldn’t imagine how an iPad would be helpful during an operation to remove two tumors from a liver,” photographer Fabian Bimmer, who filmed the surgery, blogged.

The unique methodology, a first of its kind in Germany helps surgeons locate critical structures such as tumours and vessels in organs

Check http://www.reuters.com/article/slideshow?articleId=USRTX12RKG&slide=1#a=1 for details.


Courtesy : Reuters
MEDICOS WORLD - www.mediconet.blogspot.com