A brain surgery in which a patient’s tumor is projected onto the head through computer glasses with great accuracy. Reality at UMC Utrecht. The holograms help the neurosurgeon navigate the brain prior to and during surgery and operate very precisely. Startup Augmedit BV recently received a Eurostars grant for a €1 million project from the European Commission with which they want to eventually make this application available to hospitals worldwide.
Meanwhile, the technology has been successfully tested on several patients using the Microsoft HoloLens. Neurosurgeon Tristan van Doormaal: “Complex operations require very extensive preparation. This Augmented Reality application allows for three-dimensional projection of a hologram of the brain, including blood vessels, aneurysms, tumors and other (ab)normalities. You’re less likely to encounter surprises during surgery as a result, and you can better prepare the team including junior doctors for potential problems.”
Tristan uses the holograms not only in preparation and during the operation itself. He also uses them as education during the conversation with the patient and loved ones. “A brain tumor is not a round ball that you can remove fairly easily, but instead often has long offshoots right through the brain. By showing patients what the tumor looks like, and that it runs along important blood vessels or nerves, for example, it gives them insight into the situation and thus makes the various treatment (in)possibilities more discussable. Education tailored to each individual patient, in other words.”
Startup Augmedit BV develops these applications and brings them to market in close cooperation with UMC Utrecht. CEO of Augmedit BV Claartje Ypma: “We use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other modern techniques to extract information from current medical scans (CT, MRI), and automatically convert them into three-dimensional holograms. Our goal is to use this to make operations more precise, more predictable and therefore safer. We are also working on a platform for storage and mutual exchange of these holograms. The software is being developed not only for brain operations, but is much more widely applicable, such as in jaw, orthopedic and pediatric oncology operations, among others.”
