It used to be that the larger the operation, the greater the cuts, stitches and recovery required.
Now, surgeons are increasingly moving toward minimally invasive surgery, turning to high-tech tools to reduce the trauma and recovery time.
A new partnership forged between Johns Hopkins University and a German biomedical engineering firm, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, brings together experts in the field to develop minimally invasive surgical tools.
“It gives us a stellar team to try and attack these problems,” said Elliot McVeigh, a professor and director of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins.
The technology required for these surgeries is “essentially being designed right now by these groups of engineers,” McVeigh said.
Through the 15-month partnership researchers will develop a computer-aided tool for diagnosing gastrointestinal disease, a tool that aligns CT scans during surgery and a system to track surgical tools during the procedure.
Minimally invasive surgery means smaller incisions so there is less trauma and quicker recovery, said Dr. Scott Roth, associate professor of surgery and surgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
The philosophy and the technology exploded in the mid-?90s, and now has become fairly routine, one of the most common being gall bladder removal, he said.
The technology has certain limitations, but the medical community has been “working with the industry to develop solutions to the problems,” Roth said.
The technique heralds the future of surgery when surgeons can make a single incision or enter through an orifice such as the mouth and use more flexible instruments to make twists and turns, he said.
At Johns Hopkins, the international partnership is another example of the school?s collaborations in the United States and beyond, said Wesley Blakeslee, executive director of the university?s Technology Transfer, which works as a liaison to researchers.
“Collaboration is more of a rule than it is an exception,” he said.
