Medical experts used “Google Glass” for hosting a live surgical telecast for the first time in Kochi. The live surgery demonstration on Revision Total Knee Replacement (TKR) was conducted at Aster Medcity, Kochi, Kerala, by Dr AV Gurava Reddy.
Google Glass is a type of wearable technology with an optical head-mounted display. The technology has been developed by Google with the mission of producing a mass-market ubiquitous computer. Google Glass displays information in a smart phone-like hands-free format. Wearers can communicate with the Internet via natural language voice commands. In this demonstration, Google Glass was used to telecast the surgeon’s view to the spectators, thus giving them a feel of assisting him and being present in the surgical field. Globally, increasing numbers of surgeons are using Google Glass to stream their surgeries online or to float medical images in their field of view, and also to hold video consultations during the surgery.
Discussing the need of a total TKR, Dr Vijayamohan, Joint Replacement Surgeon at Aster Medcity stated, “Total knee replacements can be expected to function well for at least 15 to 20 years in more than 85-90 per cent of patients. However, some procedures will fail and require a second surgery, called revision knee replacement. In the case presented today, the patient is undergoing a Revision Total Knee Replacement surgery for the second time. A special prosthesis was used for the patient during this live surgery.”
Revision Total Knee Replacement is the replacement of the previous failed total knee prosthesis with a new prosthesis. It is a complex procedure that requires extensive preoperative planning, specialised implants and tools, prolonged operating times, and mastery of difficult surgical techniques to achieve a good result. Aster Medcity, Kochi, has operation theatres with a live streaming facility to telecast the surgery to the participants of the workshop.
Bone model workshops were also offered for providing a hands-on experience on primary as well as revision TKR. This initiative was organised by Clinical Orthopaedic Research and Excellence (CORE) an Aster Orthopaedics initiative.
EH News Bureau