Paul Mikus on Computer Assisted Surgery
Paul Mikus is the Misonix Marketing Director for medical technologies who is located in Santa Ana, California. In surgical operating rooms around the world today, new technologies are being employed with the promise of improving precision, information and insight in a surgeon’s hands. Included in the types of technologies that are changing surgery are improved imaging and robotics.
A new class of technology called mixed reality spatial computing is beginning to emerge as a technology that may offer the next big leap in medical technology. The best comparison is the way people drove cars a decade ago and the way they will drive cars in the coming decade. Human navigation, the driver navigating by knowledge of the terrain, or by printed map was the standard approach. Then came GPS, global position system that automated the map and guide the driver. Today and going forward, the car uses sensors, computer vision and artificial intelligence to allow the car to drive itself.
The same sensors, computer vision and artificial intelligence are being employed in surgery to inform the surgeon so they can “drive” more effectively and efficiently. Companies like PolarisAR1 are using mixed reality headsets like Hololens 22. In this approach, they use the headset to image the anatomy, calculate anatomical positions, plan the optimal approach and even guide the instrumentation to the correct position. The surgeon can see this in mixed reality, the actual anatomy view is augmented by a 3D holographic display of the information gathered and planned near or at the surgical site. What makes this technology approach different than other innovations is the way spatial computing collaboratively informs the surgeon. At times, new technology can overwhelm and distract the user from the application forcing a tradeoff between the benefit it can bring and the inconvenience of changing the workflow to adopt it.
Mixed reality spatial computing devices for surgical navigation are integrating into the existing surgical workflow rather than forcing the surgeon to modify them to accommodate the technology. The resulting comfort in a familiar surgical workflow allows the technology to provide information in it that can result in improving it without overwhelming it. Not only does it make mixed reality surgical navigation a technology that can be adopted, but it positioned it to be more clinical useful over other classes of technology that are emerging. The clinical utility of this new class of mixed reality surgical navigation is the reason it has the potential to usher in a new age of surgical navigation.