Virtual Reality Spine Surgery Tool Launched

ImmersiveTouch, Inc. has launched ImmersiveView, a suite of integrated virtual reality (VR) real-time solutions for personalized surgical planning, patient engagement and surgical training using patented haptic technology.

Pat Banerjee, Ph.D., founder and CEO of ImmersiveTouch, told OTW, “While physicians were previously limited to visualizing surgical options on 2D monitors, now they can use ImmersiveView to vividly see and interact with patient-specific anatomy. For example, scoliosis surgery planning can be very difficult because physicians have to determine exactly how much each level should be moved or reduced to achieve good alignment and balance. ImmersiveView helps surgeons determine calculations with precise accuracy while they’re rehearsing for the procedure.”

“Rather than having to rely on other medical professionals to read images such as MRIs, the suite provides surgeons with measurement tools to make their own calculations and surgical decisions to support insurance company authorization. Surgeons are also using our technology to figure out issues before they enter the operating room, enabling them to reduce their surgery times by up to several hours. ImmersiveTouch accomplishes this by working closely with a large, dedicated group of leading surgeons to help develop 3D VR surgical systems that solve the issues they face in the surgery process. These are solutions developed by surgeons, for surgeons.”

“Pediatric scoliosis cases are often staged procedures, requiring evaluation and planning after each stage. In this case, a young female patient presents with severe progressive scoliosis, and is being operated on for stabilization and correction of the spinal deformity. The intra-operative scans were taken to evaluate the initial hardware placement. ImmersiveView enables surgeons to physically interact with the 3D patient scan with their hands, something not possible with existing technology. With traditional 2D scans, important details of the anatomy can often time be missed, and with existing 3D scans, the anatomy is not intuitively explorable. In VR, these limitations do not exist. Clear imaging and seamless scan navigation allow surgeons to plan and perform surgeries more confidently and swiftly, improving patient outcomes while lowering surgical costs.”

“A major milestone was creating proprietary artificial intelligence algorithms that allowed us to make the leap from viewing 3D scans on a 2D screen to viewing 3D scans in an immersive virtual reality environment with real 3D depth perception.”

“Another significant milestone during the development was identifying a large group of surgeons in several specialty areas for feedback on the product. They helped us develop ImmersiveView with a robustness that could be used for pre-operative planning and surgical rehearsal. We beta tested the technology with surgeon end users for months to iterate and create the most intuitive user interface possible.”

“A memorable moment in my history with ImmersiveTouch was when I was present for the planning of a pediatric facial reconstruction and witnessed firsthand how ImmersiveView 3D VR software revolutionizes surgical planning for everyone involved. When the surgeon walked the young patient and her grandmother through the plan, the grandmother’s reaction was the most touching because she was visibly relieved after seeing her grandchild’s surgery in the virtual environment. That experience hit home that the product we’ve created has lasting effects on not only physicians, but the patients as well.”