The Johns Hopkins-Coulter Translational Partnership Oversight Committee has selected our project, “Augmented Reality for Orthopedic and Trauma Surgeries,” for the full funding requested.  The OC stated it was very impressed with the high level of presentations.  For our project, the technical development, market potential and potential benefit to patients, as well as the chance of commercialization success were considered exceptionally strong and justified full project funding.

The most difficult procedures during orthopedic and trauma surgeries is the placement of screws to repair complex fractures. Using a vast amount of X-ray images (we have observed surgeries with up to 246 images) the surgeon needs to drill a guide wire through the bone fragments. The difficulty is further increased by muscle and other tissue covering the bones (e.g. for pelvis).

Our system comprises a traditional X-ray machine (C-arm), a 3D camera mounted on this X-ray machine, and generally available 3D Computed Tomography (CT) images to guide the surgeon. Rather than seeing simple 2D X-ray images, our system shows the surgeon a 3D view of the bones, the drill, the patient surface and even the surgeon’s hands in real-time. This “Superman”- view, referred to Interventional 3D Augmented Reality, was shown to reduce duration, radiation dose, number of X-ray images, and complications in our pre-clinical experiments. In summary, our system increases patient safety and represents the future of interventional X-ray imaging.