January 2, 2023 /OrthoSpineNews/ – On December 2022, historical past was made by Dr. Brian Fiani when he hosted a digital actuality spine surgical procedure seminar within the Metaverse for 50 spine surgeons from 10 completely different nations. The demonstration was an enormous success. Dr. Fiani was one of many very first neurosurgeons to publish on digital actuality when he printed his paper “Digital Actuality in Neurosurgery: “Can You See It?”-A Assessment of the Present Purposes and Future Potential” in early 2020, a paper with greater than 20,000 views and cited over 1600 instances to-date. Since then, he has continued to be a pioneer within the evolution of surgical expertise and an advocate for its use within the working room. Dr. Fiani has at all times been intrigued by the facility of innovation and what it provides surgeons and sufferers. As a boy, he was a inventive thinker developing with new innovations and he credit this ardour as considered one of his motivations for pursuing spine surgical procedure. He has labored with a number of corporations through the years to develop software program and {hardware} parts for intraoperative expertise that has been breaking limitations within the working room and increasing capabilities. Already a patent holder, Dr. Fiani’s final aim with surgical expertise is to enhance affected person care within the working room.
Dr. Fiani says that expertise and innovation are consistently evolving and new developments preserve the modernization of medication attention-grabbing. To him, digital actuality is the assembly place of creativity and science. Digital actuality offers members the power to do issues that we can not do in the true world. Among the particular surgical instructing options embrace visualizing 3-dimentional reconstructions pre-operatively, surgical planning, surgical simulations, and post-operative evaluation all whereas decentralizing surgical training in order that members might be anyplace on the earth at that specific time.
The digital actuality seminar was held on the New York Metropolis Minimally Invasive Backbone Surgical procedure (NYC-MISS) Symposium in New York Metropolis, New York, USA on December 15-17, 2022. Through the 2-day lesson plan, members activated headsets that produced 3-dimentional visualization capabilities and hand controls for limitless motion and motion options.
50 spine surgeons from 10 completely different nations joined! Over 30 of the world’s masters in spine surgical procedure joined within the Metaverse and one other 20 spine surgeons selected to observe with out headsets as a result of the digital actuality world was concurrently broadcasted into the true world auditorium screens by one of many representatives inside the Metaverse.
In preparation, Dr. Fiani labored with an organization named Non Nocere from Germany. The corporate beneficial properties its identify from the phrase “primum non nocere” which in Latin means “first, do no hurt”. They shipped all of the state-of-the-art headsets and hand controls to New York Metropolis for the occasion. They in a single day mailed him a headset and controls to apply one week earlier than the occasion. This system technicians and gross sales representatives from Germany and Turkey educated him and helped him apply utilizing the Metaverse options for a number of days. It was proof of product that they met within the Metaverse from three completely different nations on the identical time to perform a aim. The corporate made the method very user-friendly for him. They downloaded preoperative and postoperative imaging, in addition to, his slideshow displays from 4 surgical instances. The 4 surgical procedures had been categorized as degenerative spine surgical procedure, spinal tumor surgical procedure, deformity surgical procedure, and revision surgical procedure. Throughout the few days of preparation, he grew to become snug with the Metaverse surgical auditorium which capabilities as a lecture corridor and digital anatomy lab and in addition the digital actuality working room which capabilities as a surgical simulator lab.
Dr. Fiani commented that the system was very intuitive and after a couple of minutes you are feeling at one with the digital actuality world and its ongoings. The hand controls make maneuvering easy and the actions give haptic suggestions. The system is instantaneously responsive with out glitch or delay.
Dr. Fiani says that digital actuality is remodeling spine surgical procedure training. Through the Covid-19 pandemic and even afterwards, folks had been gathering on Zoom as a platform for conferences. He believes digital actuality is the pure evolution for enhancing engagement by creating an area for discussions and interplay. Decentralizing surgical training permits worldwide participation which is especially essential within the fields of medication and surgical procedure. The digital actuality Metaverse permits surgeons to simulate surgical procedures earlier than performing them.
Digital actuality permits the presenter and members to be engaged in a single place whereas logging on from anyplace on the earth internationally. Reconstructed fashions primarily based on affected person imaging permits higher visualization of simulated spine fashions and apply surgical procedures beforehand. Surgical simulation can assist supplied repetitious coaching in a protected atmosphere to create a faster extra environment friendly workflow in the true world for youthful surgeons and decrease studying curves with new merchandise for knowledgeable surgeons.
The digital actuality periods occurred over two days. On the primary day, the members gathered within the real-world auditorium right here in New York Metropolis and logged on with their headsets and hand controls and discovered the fundamentals of maneuvering to turn into snug with the Metaverse. Two technicians and gross sales representatives had been current within the auditorium room to help members. One software program programmer was contained in the Metaverse to help there. He offered two case displays, every with an elaborate slideshow presentation that was downloaded into the Metaverse and projected onto what would seem like a 100 foot display by real-world estimation. Pre-operative imaging was proven together with xrays, CT scans, and MRI scans with scrolling functionality. One case was cervical spondylotic myelopathy and one was lumbar deformity. The software program constructed massive 30 foot fashions utilizing preoperative imaging. The imaging was additionally superimposed onto the mannequin and we used options to select-in or select-out elements of the anatomy to higher view what was behind or round it, for instance, eradicating the bone to see the compression on the spinal cord. These two instances had been offered in order that members might carry out their desired surgical plan within the real-world cadaver lab the next morning. On the second day, members had been now extra snug with the Metaverse which allowed glorious educational dialogue to happen. He hosted 2 extra case displays with slideshow displays together with intraoperative footage. The constructed pre-op mannequin displayed the tumor with nice specificity and the postop mannequin displayed its resection and placement on instrumentation for our tumor case. The revision surgical procedure case demonstrated the digital actuality potential to preoperatively measure screw and rod sizes and evaluate to our postoperative mannequin constructed from imaging.
The members had been in awe. The world’s greatest spine surgeons of master-class degree had been having the time of their lives. The members loved the audio-visual high quality with haptic suggestions, the life-like spine anatomy fashions, the projection of imported CT and MRI scans, and the surgical simulation options. The surgeons had been like kids discovering new toys on Christmas morning. The positioning of smiles, the sound of laughter, and the looks of curiosity stuffed the auditorium.
Dr. Fiani is happy about the way forward for digital actuality (VR) and augmented actuality (AR) for spine surgical procedure. VR will proceed to be extra life-like with computer-brain synchronizing and the headsets will turn into lighter to the purpose the place they turn into glasses and possibly even contact lens. VR hand controls will probably turn into gloves for extra reasonable actions and management to simulate actions and surgical simulations. With regard to AR, headsets can even turn into lighter and smaller and shift to glasses or contact lens. Extra corporations shall be created and competitors will develop. With regards to the longer term Dr. Fiani says “within the very close to future, fairly presumably within the 12 months 2023, I shall be internet hosting the primary annual digital actuality spine surgical procedure convention. Keep tuned, planning has already begun.”
Contact
Dr. Brian Fiani
bwv9004@med.cornell.edu
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