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Researchers aim to give surgeons 3D maps, directions of human body
While a GPS-style "navigation system" for surgeons may not seem like the best idea to anyone that's ever been led astray by their dash-mounted co-pilot, it apparently seemed like a good enough idea for a group of researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. While they do stretch the metaphor a bit, the group's TLEMsafe system does provide surgeons with a complete 3D map of the lower body, which can actually be personalized for each individual patient, giving surgeons a reference and means to practice before any actual surgery takes place -- and, yes, even an "automated navigation system" during surgery. Coincidentally, some researchers from the University of Colorado have also just announced that they've developed a similar modeling system that would give surgeons 3D views of arteries and let them see any blockages up close. It's even already been tested on patients, while the University of Twente says its system will be ready for clinical trials in about four years' time.
Summon the endoscopy gods in this Trauma Team video
In real life, an endoscopy is when a doctor needs to check out your gutty-works (you know, your innards) using a medical instrument called an endoscope, a long, tube-like device. In the world of Trauma Team, however, to perform an endoscopy you have to summon the power of the "eight million gods that exist to protect this world." You also have to use a bunch of instruments in what appears to be a somewhat complex orchestra conducted by a series of Wiimote and Nunchuk gestures. If there's one thing to take away from this video, it's that the inside of your body is most likely tumor-ridden with tiny little holes everywhere, and you should probably bug your doctor for a check-up. Of course, you could just ask your friend to take a look -- just make sure you sterilize the Wiimote first.
A slice of Trauma Team gameplay
In previous videos for Atlus's upcoming game Trauma Team, we've seen interviews with the voice actors, and behind-the-scenes footage of the recording process and game development. This latest, however, focuses on something that's only been incidental to other trailers: footage of Trauma Team, the game. In this somewhat infomercial-esque video, Atlus introduces the aspect of the game most like its Trauma Center predecessors: the surgical portion. However, unlike the maddening, arcade-style Trauma Center, many of the surgical challenges come without a time limit. Also seen in this video: pretty good 3D models of bones! We just wanted to point that out.
Meet Trauma Team's voice team
The floodgates for Trauma Team publicity are open, starting with the screenshots and now continuing with promotional videos. Atlus takes us behind the scenes of Trauma Team -- wisely choosing to feature the game's voice recording over, say, the medical research the team did. In the first of two videos (above), Atlus offers a tour of PCB Productions, the company producing the voice work for the multidisciplinary medical adventure. In the second (after the break), we meet a few of the actors portraying the quirky medical team, allowing us to put different faces to the voices behind the cartoon characters. Trauma Team is currently scheduled for an April 20 release date.
Trauma Team screens feature the whole team at work
click to cut open the galleryIn case you've forgotten about Trauma Team (it has been a while), Atlus's expanded Trauma Center sequel stars a group of six medical professionals, each an expert in a different discipline. These new screens feature each of the game's six simulated medical practices in action: surgery, forensics, diagnostics, first response, endoscopy, and orthopedics. They all seem to involve similar activities: jabbing, cutting, and otherwise manipulating human bodies with Wii Remote motions. Still, the variety of methods through which you manipulate said bodies should help keep the Trauma Center formula from going stale, as should the personalities of the six quirky doctors (the "Drama Team," if you will). %Gallery-80773%
New robotic system could let surgeons operate on a beating heart
It may not have been put into practice just yet, but it looks like a new robotic-assisted system could one day let surgeons use a surgical robot (like Da Vinci system pictured at left) to operate on a beating human heart. That impressive development comes courtesy of a group of researchers at France's Montpellier Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics, and Microelectronics, and centers on a new 3D modeling system that can track the motion of the heart's surface as it beats. It can even apparently adjust for things like movement of the patient's chest wall during breathing, and predict the movements in a single step (unlike previous attempts that resulted in a delay). When paired with a robotic arm, the system would effectively let surgeons operate on a heart as if it were completely still. In addition to being generally amazing, the system could also potentially open up a number of new possibilities for heart surgery, not the least of which is the ability to operate on patients for whom the risks of surgery have previously outweighed the benefits.
British surgeons using radiation beams to halt macular degeneration
We've seen more eyesight restoration efforts than we could easily count, but rather than tooting their horn about some theoretical discovery, boffins at Kings College Hospital in London are actually putting their hard work to use on real, live human brings. The new process, which goes by the name brachytherapy, is a one-off treatment for macular degeneration. In essence, surgeons carefully light up a beam of radiation within the eye for just over three minutes, which kills harmful cells without damaging anything else. A trial is currently underway in order to restore eyesight in some 363 patients, and everything thus far leads us to believe that the process is both safe and effective. As for costs? The procedure currently runs £6,000 ($9,889), but that's still not awful when you consider that existing treatments involving injections run £800 per month. Hop past the break for a video report.
Behind the scenes with the Trauma Team team
Trauma Center changed the world a little bit, and we didn't even notice. Sure, there were surgery games before on the PC, but Trauma Center was the first really popular surgery-game franchise. It's so popular, in fact, that not only is there now a game that expands beyond surgery into other medical practices, but we'll watch a behind-the-scenes video for that game raptly.Seriously, this is a game that is partially about endoscopy and we're totally on board. What has Atlus done to us? Trauma Team is currently slated for Spring 2010.
Atlus goes beyond Trauma Center for new Wii game 'Hospital'
In this week's Famitsu, Atlus has revealed a "spiritual successor" to the Trauma Center series that expands the game's scope beyond surgery. Hospital, created by the same development team as the hit surgery games, stars six different medical practitioners, each with a different specialization. Only one of the six is a Trauma Center-style surgeon -- Prisoner CR-SO1, a convict whose sentence was reduced in exchange for his surgical expertise.The rest of the group include a diagnostician, a paramedic, a cosmetic surgeon (who performs non-life-or-death procedures like hip replacements), an endoscopic surgeon, and a forensic examiner. Each character features a different style of play.According to 1up's translation of the article, producer Daisuke Kanada told Famitsu that the game "completes one of the goals for a medical series that we've been striving for before, and it's also a wholly new title, not a sequel to Trauma Center. It's not just a surgery game, but an entire hospital in game form.
Robot Hall of Fame expands to include Da Vinci, Terminator, Roomba
Forget those "sporting" Halls of Fame -- the real HOF is right here. Since 2003, the Robot Hall of Fame has been honoring robots and creators at an exhibit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and now we're seeing the latest handful of noteworthy creatures take their rightful place in history. For those unaware, the Robot HOF is maintained by Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Science Center, and an international jury of researchers, writers, and designers has just selected five new bots to join the cast: Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the T-800 Terminator (yes, that Terminator), the Da Vinci surgical system, iRobot's Roomba and 'Huey, Dewey, and Louie' from the 1972 sci-fi flick Silent Running. Could you have imagined a more fitting five? If so, sound off below!
Video: da Vinci Si robotic system wants to be your surgeon
Oh boy, from the looks of that picture the only perquisites for using the updated da Vinci Si surgical system are video game skills, a preference for interacting with the physical world on a high-def display, and an abnormal interest in robots. Sound like anyone you know? Intuitive Surgical's latest robotic system features two separate HD optical channels that the manufacturer claims will give "highly accurate depth perception" when merged. The surgeon console features touchpad control of the video, audio, and system settings while providing "precise, dexterous control" of a an extensive array of surgical tools held by the robotic flanges. Perfect for all your minimally invasive, WebMD-inspired home surgery needs when not performing transplants at county. Check the video after the break -- amazing is an understatement.[Via MedGadget]
Eizo debuts 56-inch 4k x 2k RadiForce LS560W LCD monitor
Eizo's known for doling out less-than-affordable LCD monitors, but this one just takes the crown (for now). Slated to dazzle in operating rooms everywhere this July, the RadiForce LS560W is a 56-inch behemoth of an LCD that boasts a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 (or darn close to native 4k x 2k). We're also told that the panel features a 176-degree field of view, a 1,200:1 contrast ratio and 450 nits of brightness. And to think -- we were beginning to wonder if all that 4k surgery footage would ever find a dedicated screen to run on.
Waseda University's heartbeat compensation robot be stills our hearts
Look closely. No, closer. See that slab of pink meat in the middle of Waseda University's surgical robot? That's a heart... now imagine it's your heart. Don't worry, if you ever do pit flesh-to-servo against this device, it'll likely be saving your life during a coronary bypass. After making a small incision, the robot compensates for the natural shake and movement of the organ caused by heartbeats so that surgery can proceed as if the organ is still. That little trick could enable minimally invasive, endoscopic heart surgeries in the future -- no need to crack open the chest cavity. Amazing stuff. See a close-up after the break. You: it's what's for dinner.
Laser-bonded healing could replace needle and thread
It sounds more like something you'd see in X-Men than on an actual operating table in real life, but a team at Massachusetts General Hospital has developed a way to heal surgical incisions with laser light. Christened laser-bonded healing, the methodology has been studied for years, but up until now, scientists have found it impossible to find the perfect balance of heat required to coax tissue into healing itself back together. Irene Kochevar described the process as "nano suturing," as diminutive collagen fibers are woven together in a way that the old-fashioned needle-and-thread method simply can't match. The benefits, as you can likely imagine, are numerous: less scarring, faster recovery, the potential for fewer infections and bragging rights that you were struck with lasers and survived. Still, the procedure is far from becoming commonplace in ORs, given that the dermatological procedure hasn't even been submitted to the FDA yet. 'Til then, it's up to you and Wolverine to figure things out.
Stryker Endoscopy intros world's first wireless HD surgical display
Slowly but surely, AMIMON is establishing itself as a serious player in the wireless HD space. Right before our eyes, the outfit has announced that it's playing a major role in the world's first HD wireless display designed specifically for use in the operating room. Stryker Endoscopy's WiSe HDTV is embedded with AMIMON's WHDI technology, though few details beyond that are being disclosed. We've no idea if this is just the beginning of AMIMON's domination of the OR, but it's certainly a good start. Here's hoping we see some similar announcements in the consumer space at CES -- it's about time some of these wireless HD doodads stopped looking pretty and started shipping out.
British surgeon saves life by obeying SMS instructions
Not that we haven't seen text messaging save a life before, but this situation was clearly more intense than anything we've heard of in the past. British vascular surgeon David Nott was volunteering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo when faced with a 16-year-old boy that had "his left arm ripped off." With the knowledge that it was "badly infected and gangrenous," he relied on SMS instructions from a colleague in England in order to perform a forequarter amputation. Out of respect for your stomach, we'll spare you the details (believe us, plenty are in the read link), but the end result was that the boy was able to survive thanks to the text-based how-to guide. Who says messaging has no practical purpose?[Via textually]
RED / Sony wares used during first 4K recording of surgery
And to think, just over a year ago we all thought 1080p surgery was the future. Recently, Steven F. Palter, MD of Gold Coast IVF in Syosset, NY teamed with RED and Sony in order to "film and project a surgery and microscopic images in 4K, which represents its first uses in medicine and biology." During the digital cinema presentation, the 1,600+ surgeons in attendance were able to view the procedure in nauseating detail, giving the crowd the ability to almost be right there inside the operating room from afar. Additionally, the session included a projection of the "largest high-definition 3D surgical images ever," which we can only imagine led to at least a few dozen fainting episodes.[Image courtesy of Surgery Encyclopedia]
Sony brings HD to the operating theater
We know several doctors who come home to relax in front of some HD material, and Sony (no stranger to the medical field) has a slew of new and upgraded products to make sure that they get the same high-fidelity experience at work. The ImageCore HD Digital Capture System can put both still and video images at full 1920x1080 pixel resolution onto the hospital network for anyone to view. And wouldn't you know, Sony has a new 32-inch LMD-3250 HD LCD monitor to help out with just that. Of course, collaboration is a big deal among medical specialists, and HD videoconferencing between five sites can be done with the PCS-XG80; there's even the UP-55MD/HD video printer so everyone can get a hardcopy. Sure, there are other players in the HD medical space, but this kind of product range is pretty impressive.
Bionic lens to debut in the next half-decade
Professor James Wolffsohn from Aston University in the United Kingdom imagines that within the next decade, the cure to near- and farsightedness will not only exist, but will actually be within reach. While the underlying idea of replacing biological lenses with minty-fresh artificial ones isn't necessarily new (think cataract surgery), Wolffsohn's efforts will allow patients to focus both near and far, instead of just plain old, boring far. While the details on how the lenses work are a little scant (read non-existent), apparently eye muscles squeezing the "ultra-flexible" devices allow the actual focusing to occur. The professor has been working with opthology companies to commercialize the specs, and envisions the procedure costing less than £1,000 within the next five to ten years. Sounds good to us, because fancy new lenses or not, as people who stare at computer screens all day, the odds of us going under the laser at some point are a tad on the high side.
Swallowable microgrippers could make surgery more / less invasive
While the scientists that developed these newfangled ingestible microgrippers call them minimally invasive, we're not so sure that swallowing minuscule devices that can cut and grab tissue when chemically activated fits our definition of keyhole surgery. Nevertheless, tiny "handlike grippers" are currently being shown off to highly intelligent professionals in the medical realm, and if proven feasible, they could one day be used to perform biopsies from within. More specifically, the devices could reportedly "react to the biochemicals released by infected tissue by closing around the tissue, so that pieces can be removed for analysis." Yeah, we reckon this is a bit less painful than actually going under the knife, but the mere thought of having blade-wielding microorganisms floating around our innards spooks us just a wee bit. Go on, fling your "pansies!" this way -- we can take it.[Via medGadget]
