RaduTyrsina
News Team
The iPad tablet has been used by health professionals for some time now. We have been hearing reports of medical doctors getting patients’ lab result on their Apple devices or visualizing tumors and organs. Nevertheless, the tablet hasn’t been taken to the OR yet. Not until last week, when a team of surgeons in Germany performed the first liver surgery with the help of an iPad.
Doctors at the Asklepios Klinik Barmbek in Hamburg tested an iPad app for the first time, which was destined to help decrease complications arising during an operation. The patient on the tablet was suffering from liver cancer and the medical team used the app to re-construct the location of his blood vessels. The app is based on the MEVIS software, which was especially created to assist during liver surgery and has successfully been used for 6000 patients so far. Computer Scientist Alexander Kohn at MEVIS explained:
“With our app, the entire set of planning data can be shown directing on the operating table.â€
But there’s more to the app than the reconstruction. Doctors filmed the liver and the app superimposed the planning data the surgeons have assembled before the operation, highlighting blood vessels and such in different colors.
This is a huge improvement, if we consider that traditionally, the blood vessels were being mapped out before the surgery and the printed model would have been used in the operating room. Thus, using the iPad app allows doctors to be more precise and minimize blood loss.
Source: Yahoo! News
