OrthoGrid Systems has carried out the first successful testing of its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered software solution in live trauma surgery at University Medical Center (UMC) in the US state of Nevada.
OrthoGrid set out to demonstrate that AI has an important role to play intraoperatively. Richard Boddington, co-founder and co-CEO of OrthoGrid, explained: “This is a huge step towards image-guided automation made possible by our advanced, deep learning-based algorithms applied to a specific, yet universal, use case in orthopaedic surgery.”
Dr Jessica Bear, orthopaedic trauma surgeon at UMC, said: “We frequently use fluoroscopic images to determine the starting point and incremental advancement of instruments and implants as we’re repairing fractures in orthopaedic trauma surgery. Having the ability to visualise the anticipated trajectory of our instruments and implants in real time offers the hope of improved efficiency, accuracy, and reproducibility.”
Collaboratively with the product development team based in Utah, researchers from OrthoGrid’s Center for Orthopedic Technology Research and Education in France have developed a complex, neural network-driven framework that has the capability to identify and track implants, instruments and surgical tools. This milestone paves the way for OrthoGrid’s technology to solve many more intraoperative challenges that are currently unassisted or unsupported digitally.
Professor Erik Kubiak, vice chair of the Department of Orthopedics at University of Nevada in Las Vegas, said: “With real-time applications that support my existing workflow, the adoption is immediate and seamless without a learning curve. I can spend more time focusing on my quality of treatment, not adapting to a new device.”
Edouard Saget, co-founder and co-CEO of OrthoGrid, added: “At first, automation is meant to augment or disrupt the method by which a standard practice is executed, not the established practice itself. Our aim is to support surgeons’ ability to be more proficient in what they know how and love to do: operate.”
In addition to achieving this advancement, OrthoGrid has tackled important issues such as fluoroscopic distortion correction, a critical step to improving accuracy in orthopaedic surgery.
Now the company is focused on further testing and optimisation of its AI-powered software solution, which it expects to integrate into its regulatory approved universal trauma application in the second half of 2020.
