The multibillion-dollar spinal-surgery market has seen relatively few clinically proven advances in surgical navigation techniques. Yet surgical navigation has tremendous potential value in delicate, precision spine surgeries, for an aging population with increasing numbers of traumatic injuries and chronic degenerations.
MaRS Innovation (MI) has accepted from one of its member institutions, Ryerson University, a technology that will reinvent imaging of the spine during surgery. The result will provide far greater imaging accuracy, better use of specialists’ time and costly healthcare resources, and more effective surgical training. The cross-disciplinary inventor team already bundles the technology for phenomenal impact: biomedical engineer Victor Yang, MD-PhD (Canada Research Chair); business-development specialist Beau Standish, PhD; and research scientists in algorithm and systems development, Adrian Mariampillai and Michael Leung.
Current orthopedic (i.e. spine) procedures suffer from a variety of complications, resulting in misplaced screws and implants, which may lead to devastating clinical consequences and extensive physical, mental, or economic damage. Such errors occur largely due to an inability to continuously view hidden subsurface geometries required for the accurate placement of interventional devices. With traditional methods surgeons can only capture these changes through a limited number of CT scans during surgery but these techniques expose the patient to harmful radiation, complicated by the time-consuming repositioning of markers and instruments. Dr. Yang’s team has developed an optical imager, programmed to make continuous external topographical maps of the spine during surgery: a grid to guide the procedure.
MI has filed a patent and is seeking additional, third-party funding for proof of concept work on algorithm development and proof-of-principle device development on a simulated spine. “Critical to the commercialization plan for this image guidance system is advancing it to the stage where its intrinsic value can be realized,” says MI President and CEO Dr. Rafi Hofstein.
