Surgery

News • Photoacoustic imaging

Breast cancer surgery without lab testing and pathology reports may soon be a reality

Determining where breast cancer ends and healthy tissue begins is a critical part of breast cancer surgery. Surgeons are used to working closely during surgery with anatomic pathologists who generate pathology reports that specify the surgical or tumor margin, an area of healthy tissue surrounding a tumor that also must be excised to ensure none of the tumor is left behind. This helps prevent the…

News • Study asks neurosurgeons

How old is too old to perform brain surgery?

People sometimes joke that easy tasks are “not brain surgery.” But what happens when it actually is brain surgery? How old is too old to be a neurosurgeon? In a new Mayo Clinic Proceedings study, most neurosurgeons disagreed with an absolute age cutoff, but half favored additional testing for neurosurgeons 65 and older. Some professions, including commercial pilots, FBI agents and air traffic…

Article • Developed by Single Use Surgical

Top quality single-use suctions

A pioneering single-use Diathermy Abbey Needle with suction that helps surgeons improve performance and outcomes during a range of procedures is on show at this year’s Medica.

Sponsored • OR illumination

The right kind of light

Manufactured in Italy, the STARLED3 NX lamp, based on next generation LED technology, provides cold, shadowless light, long life and low energy consumption, and directs light beams according to needs, so is suitable for diagnosis, gynaecology, dermatology, general medicine and surgery.

Sponsored • UHD WDR

Launching: The 27-inch medical trade 4K monitor

A major addition to Ikegami’s range of surgical monitors is being launched at Medica this year. ‘The new MLW-2750HD is a 27-inch 4K UHD display in a shallow-profile configuration, fully optimised for use in operating rooms,’ the manufacturer reports. ‘With its 800 cd/m2 high brightness IPS 8 megapixel display panel, this new monitor improves the efficiency of medical teams by enabling…

Article • Improving efficiency

Pixel perfect surgical displays

Given the aim to provide ‘affordable care’, the economical organisation of operating theatres is critical. Surgical procedures also contribute as much as 60-70% of hospital revenues. Thus surgical efficiency and flexibility are paramount in surgical departments.

Article • Brain tumour resection

Navigated ultrasound - The best intraoperative imaging technique

New navigation imaging and neurophysiological stimulation techniques enable an approach to brain tumours long considered unresectable before and during surgery, but not one does it quite as well as ultrasound, according to a leading Spanish neurosurgeon.

Article • Spanish researchers successfully create skin

3-D bio-printed organ is ‘just like the real thing’

In a spectacular development, Spanish researchers demonstrate for the first time that 3-D printing can be used to produce human skin deemed appropriate for transplants and testing applications.

Article • Augmented Reality in the operating theatre

Virtual data merges with a real body

Medical Augmented Reality (AR) assistance systems overlay information onto a surgeon’s field of view. This technology is complex and expensive. Therefore, the procedure must offer a big advantage compared to conventional treatment and diagnostic methods to qualify for standard use. The objective is a system that shows a surgeon a 3-D image of inside the body plus instruments used during surgery…

Sponsored • New, sterile and single-use tools

The House Curette and Rosen Needle

Award-winning UK manufacturer of sterile single-use surgical instruments, DTR Medical are showcasing their new House Curette and Rosen Needle at Medica this year. ‘The House Curette includes sharp, dual action tips that scrape and scoop tough cortical bone during middle ear procedures,’ the firm explains. ‘The double-ended stainless steel instrument has clearly labelled 2.0 and 3.0mm ends,…

Article • Cloud Computing

Virtual fracture clinic boosts patient care

The Virtual Fracture Clinic (VFC) established by the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust sees patients with broken bones or soft tissue injury supported through video links and self-management methods, rather than make additional journeys to hospital for face-to-face appointments with orthopaedic consultants.

Sponsored • Point-of-care ultrasound

Gambian trip offers dialysis hope

Point-of-care ultrasound is a valuable tool for successful dialysis fistula surgery, allowing pre-operative mapping to find a suitable site and post-operative fistula scanning to check for stenosis and adequate blood flow. Anna Jerram, a clinical vascular scientist at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, discusses the role POC ultrasound played during a recent trip to the Gambia to provide critical…

News • Increased operating time

Robot-assisted surgery not always faster

A Stanford study of nearly 24,000 patients with kidney cancer concluded that robot-assisted laparoscopic surgeries are associated with increases in operating times and cost compared with conventional laparoscopic surgeries. However, the two approaches have comparable patient outcomes and lengths of hospital stay, the study showed.

News • Anesthesia

Patients overestimate postoperative pain

Patients significantly overestimate the anticipated amount of pain they’ll experience following surgery, which researchers say can cause unnecessary anxiety in patients, according to a new study. Patients who receive regional anesthesia, such as peripheral nerve blocks, epidurals or spinal anesthesia, were most likely to overestimate their postoperative pain.

News • Research project

Can new molecular imaging technology guide prostate cancer surgery?

The Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) announced that it has received funding from the Dutch Cancer Society to test whether a novel molecular imaging technology can guide prostate cancer surgery. The project will evaluate the imaging technology’s ability to detect prostate cancer during surgery, with the aim of performing more accurate removal of cancerous tissue. Prostate cancer is the most…

News • Intraoperative molecular imaging

Tumor dye makes cancerous lymph nodes glow during surgery

Surgeons at Penn Medicine are using a fluorescent dye that makes cancerous cells glow in hopes of identifying suspicious lymph nodes during head and neck cancer procedures. Because the tumors glow, surgeons get real-time guidance to help them take out as much cancer as possible and leave non-diseased tissue alone.

Article • Troponin level monitoring

Blood test could help predict which patients survive surgery

Researchers at the James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, UK, have developed a highly sensitive blood test that could be used before surgical operations to predict which patients are at risk of complications will survive in the long-term.

Article • Heart bypass surgery

New technique transforms veins into arteries

Scientists in the United Kingdom are investigating the potential of a new regenerative and tissue engineering technique that could transform veins into arteries to improve the outcomes for patients undergoing heart bypass surgery.

Article • Cardiology

‘The future belongs to the heart team’

A formerly bitter competition between cardiology and cardiac surgery is increasingly replaced by constructive cooperation. The Austrian Society of Cardiology (ÖKG) even held its annual congress along with the Austrian Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery this year.

Article • Intelligent assistance

Smart aid offers real time analysis for cancer surgeons

Computer scientist Stefanie Speidel, who became a Professor for Translational Surgical Oncology at the National Centre for Tumour Diseases, in Dresden in Germany this April, researches intelligent assistance systems for the operating theatre.

Article • Surgery tutoring

How to find the right mentor

A French start-up eases international peer-to-peer teaching in TAVI, PRP or S-ICD and other leading medical procedures by taking physicians directly in the operating suites.

Article • Cinematic Rendering in surgery

3-D visualisation is like ‘body cinema’

A physician has basically two possibilities to look inside a body: putting a scalpel to the patient’s skin or using an imaging device. Both options have advantages and disadvantages.

Article • Increase confidence in the operating theatre

Adapting to image guided surgery

In more than 21% of complex anatomical osteosynthesis procedures, an intraoperative improvement of the implant position or a revision of reduction has to be performed (Recum von, J. et al., Unfallchirurg 2012, 115:196-201, Die intraoperative 3D-C-Bogen-Anwendung. State of the art).

Surgery for early prostate cancer often harmful

A major 20-year study provides further evidence that prostate cancer surgery offers negligible benefits to many men with early-stage disease. In such men, who account for most cases of newly diagnosed prostate cancer, surgery did not prolong life and often caused serious complications such as infection, urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction.

News • Multimodal optical spectroscopy

An infallible hand-held probe to aid cancer surgery

Canadian researchers have invented an intraoperative probe that reliably detects multiple types of tumour cells.