Dr. Greg Cvetanovich, an orthopedic surgeon and shoulder specialist at the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State performs a shoulder replacement surgery, using mixed reality 3D hologram technology. Credit: Courtesy of the Wexner Medical Center
The Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State was the first in Ohio to perform a shoulder replacement surgery using mixed reality 3D hologram technology April 7 as one of 15 sites in the country to offer the procedure.
Dr. Greg Cvetanovich, an orthopedic surgeon and shoulder specialist at the medical center who performed the surgery, said the technology makes surgeries more precise and reduces the chance of human error because it projects a hologram of the preoperative plan — written surgical instructions or models — right next to the patient.
“This technology actually brings [preoperative plans] into a hologram on your headset glasses in the operating room and you can move the hologram around, you can click right next to the patient’s shoulder, you can compare and contrast and you can really make sure that you give them them the best replacement that we can,” Cvetanovich said.
Cvetanovich said doctors take a computerized tomography scan — also known as a CT scan — of the shoulder, choose the replacement, and put the details into a computer program to create the preoperative plan for surgery.
Recovery from the surgery typically takes about a month, with patients requiring physical therapy for three to four months, Cvetanovich said. Patients usually regain full strength within six months to a year.
Cvetanovich said this technology will improve surgical accuracy and patient outcomes.
“It will also reduce outliers, like surgery that was way off — not just off by a few degrees, but way, way off, and those ones are probably likely to be a bigger problem,” Cvetanovich said. “We already know that just planning it with the CTs and the models and everything does that, and this will probably make it incrementally even better.”
Mixed reality 3D hologram technology can also give the rest of the surgical staff a better view of the operation in real time and help patients better understand the operation, Cvetanovich said.
Dr. Julie Bishop, an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in shoulder surgery at the medical center, said she has trained to use the 3D hologram technology on her patients and will train once more before using it in the surgical field.
“It’s just getting used to the technology, because it’s not innate to have glasses on that project a hologram that looks very real, that you actually touch buttons, but it’s not really something concrete that you touch,” Bishop said.
