Why Virtual 3D Planning is Crucial to Orthopedic Surgery at Yale
August 23, 2023"Orthopedic surgery is geared towards functionality and getting patients back to normal life," says Lisa Lattanza, MD, chair of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at Yale Medicine. Innovative technologies like Virtual 3D Surgical Planning are allowing orthopedic surgeons to provide care to patients who have been suffering from pain and dysfunction. By capturing images on the CT Scan and running it through a specialized software surgeons can plan their surgery without making a cut which makes the operation safer and more efficient. While this technology is a game-changer the surgeon still needs to rely on their skills and knowledge to effectively execute the plan. The technology can address specific types dislocations because X-rays only provide 2-dimensional images which don't paint the full picture. "With this 3D technology we're addressing for each individual patient what their deformity is and not just making an assumption," says Dr. Lattanza. The hope is this technology can be useful in repairing previous surgeries that didn't solve the patient's problem.
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- 00:09- Orthopaedic surgery is geared towards functionality
- 00:12and getting patients back to their normal life.
- 00:16Patients come to us,
- 00:18and they're debilitated because of pain and dysfunction.
- 00:22We can get them back to their functionality very quickly,
- 00:25and so it's great to be able to solve a problem
- 00:27with innovative technology for our patients.
- 00:34Really anything within orthopaedic surgery
- 00:37lends itself to virtual surgical planning.
- 00:40What we do is we capture images on the CT scan,
- 00:44and run that through a specialized type of software.
- 00:48By virtue of being able to manipulate those images,
- 00:50we can plan our surgery without ever making a cut.
- 00:54So once we go into the operation,
- 00:55we're simply executing the plan that we did on the computer.
- 01:01For certain diagnoses, it's definitely a game-changer,
- 01:04but you still have to understand the basics of the problem
- 01:08and how the problem used to be addressed.
- 01:10So you have to have your knowledge base
- 01:13and skills to fall back on.
- 01:14The surgery isn't planned for you.
- 01:21So one of the most common types of deformity
- 01:23that I use this technology for is something called
- 01:25a chronic missed Monteggia fracture dislocation.
- 01:29What that means is a lot of times in children,
- 01:32because their bones are relatively soft,
- 01:34they may bend without completely breaking,
- 01:37so you have a dislocation that is frequently missed.
- 01:44With this 3D technology,
- 01:46we're addressing for each individual patient,
- 01:48what their deformity is and not just making an assumption,
- 01:51well, it's always in this plane
- 01:53or it's always in that plane.
- 01:56So in this particular patient,
- 01:57what we could see was the patient had had previous surgery.
- 02:01So someone had already attempted to correct this,
- 02:04but they attempted to correct it based on the X-rays.
- 02:07We were able to specifically see that deformity,
- 02:10correct it virtually on the computer,
- 02:12and then execute that surgery.
- 02:24Surgery is stressful for families
- 02:25and stressful for patients,
- 02:27and it's extremely disappointing,
- 02:29especially when we're talking about a child.
- 02:31So to be able to offer parents hope for their child
- 02:34to get back to the way they were before the injury occurred
- 02:38is really rewarding.