3D Surgery: operating theater as “Cinema”
(from “Il resto del Carlino, Quotidiano.net)
Bologna, 16th may 2012 – Three dimensions to change the world. About movies of course, but also about healthcare. It happened yesterday, atl policlinico Sant’Orsola-Malpighi, inside the Pediatric Surgery directed by Mario Lima. Surgeons, anesthesiologist and nurses with the glasses (see the video): but on the screen there is no “Avatar”, the world famous James Cameron movie. In the operating theather surgeons will save a nine years old girl (see the photogallery): this is the first operation of this kind ever performed in Italy and the 3D help the surgeon and his team to perform all procedures in a perfect manner.
For this kind of operations, so complicated, (you have operate on tiny bodies of children, so everything is reduced proportionally), the 3D can be a great help.
“The camera has two video lines – says Prof. Lima – and this lets you see all parts onwhich you operate at 360 degrees. ” Doctors and nurses crowd the operating room: the image leaves the screen, in a few minutes the operation is completed. A doctor surprised: “I have seen it at cinema on Pina Bausch movie, but this is better!”
The child, parents will know, is one of the first people in Europe to be operated with the 3D microsurgery: a few days ago he had pain in his belly and it was not clear what was the reason of this pain. Ultrasonography showed a large cyst and the doctors took the decision to operate with an emergency hepatic resection. A technique which provides in videolaparoscopy to remove a small portion of the liver. The operation was really successful. Lima and his team ( in collaboration withtanesthetists led by Professor Simonetta Baroncini and nurses) could benefit also from a 3D navigation system, created in collaboration with French colleagues of IRCAD, in Strasbourg, which guided them in all stages before surgery, giving the possibility to test in the days before the critical stages of surgery.
3D camera is a revolution in healthcare technology: robots that ere generally used in 3d microsurgery could costs up to a milion and half euros; this camera is more flexible and less exepensive. This equipment is sold by Zaccanti SpA, a company based in Bologna, reseller of german brand Karl Storz Storz products and this is the new instrument by them. «It’s the first time that we use in Italy this technology— explain CEO Salvatore Bocchetti — and it can be an hope for all in time of crisis to promote advanced technology at low prices.” Mario Lima, head of Women’s, child and adolescent health departmen, in Policlinico S. Orsola-Malpighi, , has no doubts: «It’s our mission to find new technologies that can help us to work better — he explian—. It’s an incentive for our activities». Every year, the pediatric surgery department, headed by Lima, perform more than 1800 surgical procedures and 70% of these are made using minimally invasive surgery.
by Valerio Baroncini
(from “Il resto del Carlino, Quotidiano.net)
