In this interview, Jiménez explains the importance for health professionals of using technologies such as Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality in the field of thoracic surgery. And specifically, the use of the NextMED platform developed by ARSOFT
Question: What are the advantages of NextMED?
It gives us a three-dimensional dimension that we don’t currently have when preparing for surgery. What we surgeons want is to increase precision, operate very safely and, above all, to know exactly where the structures are. When we operate on a patient, in this case the lung, the structures are not visible, they are hidden behind tissues. So, being able to plan with 3D reconstructions before surgery gives us a lot of security and allows us to work with great precision.
Q: How has your experience been with this tool?
The advantage it has is that it is very easy to use and above all that it is almost in real time. In other words, since the study is uploaded to the platform and the time it takes to return the three-dimensional reconstruction of the anatomical structures, less than half an hour elapses. Compared to other existing systems, it provides immediate speed. The experience we have had is very good. In other words, with most of the studies that we carry out on our patients, it allows us to carry out this reconstruction without the need to do anything special, anything complicated or expensive. It is simple and very real, that is, it allows us to plan the surgery with great precision.
Q: Can NextMED be improved?
The tool is very good. In other words, as it is, it is very good because it gives us a lot of information. There could be something that could be improved such as some interaction, or to allow some structures to be differentiated from others that would make it even more powerful. And that is precisely what we are working on with ARSOFT. The feedback that we are offering you by testing this technology is precisely to find areas for improvement.
Q: How important are XR technologies in the medical field?
A lot. What technology is offering to surgery in particular is to make the techniques we perform increasingly easier, so that it is not necessary to be someone very technical to be able to perform a procedure. The more information we have, the easier it is to do one of these procedures. So, if I can have a very precise map of what the patient’s anatomy is like, that allows me to operate on the patient in a simpler way because that way we know exactly where the different structures are and where I’m going to find them. To put it in some way, what all this technology does is facilitate, but also democratize because there are certainly surgeons who have a very good three-dimensional capacity and are capable of seeing radiological images on a plane and, in their head, reconstructing them in three planes and even be able to orient them. However, there are other surgeons who do not have that ability. This technology allows surgeons who don’t have that three-dimensional ability to provide them with the same dexterity and ability that surgeons with those privileges have.
Q: How do you see the future of medicine using XR technologies?
The fact of being able to have, even during the surgical process, the possibility of, with augmented reality, reviewing or superimposing the three-dimensional reconstruction with the patient’s own anatomy, that is something that has a great future and is going to greatly facilitate the surgery of the next years.
