| Computer Aided Surgery: a bright future for engineers |
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| Written by Shishir Bashyal | |
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A recent report suggests that people with career in medicine earn more than any other field. This is not quite good news for us as engineers, but there may be hope. Here we will discuss how engineers can possibly benefit from high paying medicinal careers. Technology has played a vital role in all disciplines of modern life. Industrialization brought the concept of mass production and was backed by computers. Mass transportation systems like trains and airplanes depend heavily on computers, mainly for traffic control. Hospitals, however, remain the exception so far. Medical procedures of checkup and treatment still remain slow and thus in metropolitan cities, getting a report of a lab test takes a week or so. Though the use of computers in diagnosis has increased a lot during in last twenty years, computers have played a very small role in treatment. A study done in a Canadian city showed that eight out of every ten patients were unsatisfied with the service they received from hospitals, mainly with the time factor. If computer could be an integral part of the process, hospitals could keep in pace with the rest of the world. As an example, Computer Aided Surgery (CAS) is among the list of promising interdisciplinary research in the present world. Computer assisted devices for Total Knee Replacement (TKR) surgery and even Heart Bypass Surgeries are being patented these days. Researchers have developed systems for neurosurgery, orthopedics, radiation therapy, and laparoscopy. Preliminary evaluation and short-term clinical studies indicate improved planning and execution precision, which results in reduced complications and shorter hospital stays. Surgery is a process that always involves a certain amount of damage to the human body and is often tedious and risky. Introducing computers in surgery means not only an improvement in service quality but also less damage to the human body. It is important to mention that the current proposition is of “Computer Aided Surgery” and not “Computerized Surgery”. A human doctor still has several better skills as compared to present day computers. Humans are far superior to computers when it comes to things like dexterity, decision making and hand-eye coordination. But then, computers have their own plus points like accuracy and scalability. The idea thus is to integrate both humans and computers for better surgery, the process being called “human-in-loop”. Surgery is usually carried out in three stages: planning, rehearsal, and operation. Computers can contribute to all of the above three stages. Apart from that, the roles of computers in teaching surgical procedures have been highly appreciated worldwide. In planning, computers can help by providing better visualization methods, which is essential for better planning. Usually, CT images are deployed for the planning purpose but with computers, 3D model of the human anatomy can be reconstructed out of the CT scans. The doctors can also use computers to refer similar cases from databases or to consult the case with a surgeon at a distant location. In rehearsal, computer simulation comes handy. With the help of 3D input devices, doctors can operate on the computer generated 3D model and evaluate the success of the process. The surgery of the conjoined twins Ganga-Jamuna was carried out only after rehearsal on a synthetic replica of the patients, which was cast by a rapid prototyping device. A rapid prototyping device takes 3D image as the input and develops a 3D model as the output. For operation, applications of computers are many. Computer controlled machines are now commonly used for Minimal Invasion Surgery. A camera is inserted into the operating area through a pencil-sized incision and two operating tools through two other similarly sized incisions. The surgeon sees the operation on a computer monitor and controls the manipulators accordingly with a joystick. Apart from the minimum incision, this mechanism makes it possible to scale the surgeons’ motion down to a suitable value thus increasing the accuracy of the surgery. With this method, operating on a human appears to be that on a monster; a motion of few inches can be scaled down to few millimeters and at the same time hand-tremors can be filtered out. Yet another possibility is of restricted surgery where motions of the operating tools are restricted to certain areas prior to the surgery. As a result, damages to the healthy tissues are highly reduced. With the use of computers, it has been possible to conduct transatlantic surgery. In telesurgery, as the technology is properly called, surgeon and the patient are distant apart and the surgery is carried out via networked computers. With this possibility, the medical expertise of surgeons can be maximally utilized and in many cases means saving of lives. One of the companies developing clinically accepted Computer Aided Surgical Devices is California based Intuitive Surgical, Inc that markets series of such devices called daVinci™. With the state-of-the-art daVinci™ system, the surgeon uses a three-dimensional computer vision system to manipulate robotic arms. These robotic arms hold special surgical instruments that are inserted into the abdomen through tiny incisions. There are only few other companies that are working in this sector at this moment. Given the demand for improvement in medicinal practices and the exponential growth in computer technology, it is for sure that operating theatres will undergo drastic changes in days to come. That means for those of us willing to accept the challenge, there may be a well paying career waiting for us in medicine. |
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