Medical patients are beginning to become avatars, and it’s changing the field of surgery forever. The FDA has granted clearance for a virtual reality surgery tech created by French company Avatar Medical. Their system works by teaming with traditional surgical planning tools and combines patient CTs and MRI scans to create a 3D avatar of their bodies. Surgeons can then do all kinds of important things to that virtual copy long before an incision is ever made.
This VR enabled tech is just one example of a wave of VR, AR, and AI technologies revolutionizing surgery. And think about it… this tech allows doctors to run surgical scenarios to choose a best path, to try individualized treatments that can be tailored to each patient’s anatomy and need, and those images can be used later for instructing or auditing for best practices revisions. It seems to us that the field of healthcare is a natural fit for these technologies.
According to experts, the global VR market is growing quickly, and healthcare is a primary driver. We can look around and see this demonstrated with systems like xVision Spine System from Chicago-based Augmedics. The company, which recently closed an $82.5 million Series D funding round, developed the augmented reality tool specifically for dangerous spinal surgery. Surgeons strap into proprietary AR headgear, running proprietary software, and then the work begins.
The headset features a transparent near-eye-display (reminds us of Google Glass commercials from a decade ago), which allows the surgeon to “see” the patient’s anatomy overlayed onto the physical body. Remember the old tabletop game Operation where you couldn’t touch the metal sides or your turn was over? It’s safe to imagine it now, because doctors being able to essentially “look inside” the body of the patient is sort of happening.
Normally, while doing surgery, doctors must look away at screens… this can cause mistakes. With a VR system, doctors are superimposing critical data directly onto the surgical field. Since they can visualize through skin and tissue, they can more accurately guide surgical tools and implant devices for a safer, more accurate surgical experience. This also means less risk of complications, shorter surgery times, and improved patient outcomes.
This AR surgical guidance through co-localization of imaging concept is set to revolutionize brain surgery as well. Something called the VisAR augmented reality system from Novarad Corporation converts images similarly to the Augmedics xVision Spine System. It takes in and converts CT, MR, and other DICOM image data into a 3D hologram, which is then superimposed onto the patient via an anatomically registered overlay.
This means surgeons can do really cool things like browsing imaging studies contextually in real-time. That’s like having google search during an exam… and we think it’s a great idea. Once the VisAR system incorporates AR into a surgeon’s field of view, essential data is projected onto their anatomy in real-time… this makes all the difference in the world when we’re talking about something as sensitive and complicated as brain surgery. Doctors can visualize nerves, blood vessels, and the system even allows for team collaboration. It’s like Slack or Teams for brain surgery.
New players want in on the action too… New York City-based medical augmented reality company Medivis recently bagged $20 million in series A funding to help with their mission of establishing AR as the new standard in surgical navigation. Whatever they are working on must be promising, some of their investors include the Mayo Clinic, Disney CEO Bob Iger, NBA star Kevin Durant, and others. The company was founded in 2016 by a neurosurgeon and a radiologist.
Much like the aforementioned technologies, their system similarly uses imaging data to create a 3D render of a patient’s body. The image can then be interacted with, just like a material, tangible object, and can be superimposed onto the physical body of the patient with the use of a commercially available headset, such as Microsoft HoloLens. Some big names are already trying it out, such as Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
While there are other technologies like theirs to be found, Medivis asserts a competitive edge through better data privacy, latency times, and overall capabilities. They assert that, since their system works with commercial displays, on top of tackling these other problems, they have something special in comparison. We like the idea… and we like the idea of companies competing to make what sounds like a dream come true even better. Come back next week, we’ll have more from the world of IPOs.