Verhaert, a European innovation service provider, is spearheading transformation in healthcare with its cutting-edge robotic surgery platform. The REISS platform is tailored for minimally-invasive robotic spine surgery for lumbar endoscopic discectomy. It enables accurate and precise instrument control whilst ensuring safety by autonomously compensating for patient breathing and movements. Combining various unharmful measurement modalities, the platform reduces radiation exposure to both the patient and healthcare personnel. It’s a huge step towards fully autonomous navigation robots in healthcare.
Difficulties in minimally-invasive surgery
Although minimally-invasive spine surgery offers many benefits, current (manual) needle and instrument navigation relies on an iterative, rigid and assumed constant spine position based on X-ray imaging. “Because of surgical dynamicity and patient movements, this kind of navigation is unreliable and imprecise”, explains Michiel Twisk, Program Coordinator Life Sciences at Verhaert, “It also causes unwanted radiation exposure for everyone in the operating room. In-patient navigation remains a challenging task, especially combined with complex instrumentation dexterity. Ultimately this simply affects the patient outcome as mistakes are made.”
Guaranteeing high accuracy and safety
The innovative robotic technology platform taps into the power of multi-modal sensing and digital twin technology, combining pre-operative MRI or CT scans, intraoperative 3D ultrasound, optical and magnetic tracking. With REISS, pre-operative planning and effective execution become a reality. An optimal approach toward the herniated disk is determined by the surgeon which is then supported or facilitated by the REISS robot during surgery, eliminating trial-and-error navigation. This is done by compensating for vertebrae disc movement, a re-positioned patient and patient breathing. It contributes to patient safety, outcome and reduced X-ray exposure, as well as reducing effective operation time and allowing the surgeon to treat more patients on a daily basis.
Revolutionizing patient care worldwide
By enabling new surgeries and expanding the range of applications, these advancements are revolutionizing patient care, increasing surgical precision and reducing potential risks. “We’re committed to disrupting the status quo in healthcare and engineering breakthrough technologies to improve people’s lives”, continues Kaat Dhondt, Manager Innovation Acceleration Life Sciences at Verhaert. “The rapid evolution of technology opens up many opportunities for healthcare companies to reduce procedural time, shorten hospital stays, and minimize infection risks, ultimately benefiting countless patients worldwide.”
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