An Yokne’am, Israel-based startup company, Augmedics, recently launched a high-tech headset and goggles apparatus known as “X-vision-Spine System” which allows surgeons literally to see through a patient’s skin, muscle, and bone tissue, revolutionizing the art and science of various select surgeries without having to look away at a separate screen, Algemeiner revealed.
“With X-vision, I can actually see the details of the three-dimensional anatomy through the patient,” Dr. Daniel Sciubba, Professor of Neurological and Orthopedic Surgery and Professor of Oncology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine stated per the Algemeiner report. “It is lightweight, easy to use, and translucent, so you can see through the actual image.”
Dr. Timothy Witham, Professor of Neurological and Orthopedic Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Maryland, USA (which has partnered its medical school and hospitals with the Israeli startup) also shared his sentiments on the new technology revolutionizing patient care in his medical practice.
“Typically what we have to do during minimally-invasive spine surgery is we have to look away from where we’re working,” Dr. Witham told BusinessWire. “But X-vision has all the image-guided information directly in front of you in the goggles you’re wearing, while you’re placing the instrumentation.”
The technology has been successfully used on six patients after undergoing Israeli clinical trials in limited scopes of spinal surgeries and cadaver studies at John Hopkins Hospital, Bloomberg reported. Bloomberg further states that the Food and Drug Administration may permit use of the technology in certain minimally invasive spinal surgeries in the United States as early as 2019.
"We asked ourselves, how can we help surgeons use navigation systems and also look at their patients at the same time?" Augmedics CEO and Ben-Gurion University graduate Nissan Elimelech said, per the BusinessWire report. "With our patented device, we are able to project the patient's anatomy in real time directly onto the surgeon's retina with surgical precision and with outstanding depth perception."
“We are thrilled to partner with esteemed neurosurgeons from Johns Hopkins Hospital on this second cadaver study,” Elimelech continued. “The results of the study indicate that X-vision-spine has the potential to deliver positive, precise results, and provide real-time information in a comfortable and intuitive manner. We believe that this study lends unparalleled credibility to X-vision-spine and its ability to help surgeons navigate safely in surgery while always looking at their patient.”
Written by Erin Parfet
