Dr. Kassab from the US uses Augmented Reality (AR) for his surgeries
Dr. Safa Kassab works as a doctor in the US state of Michigan. He uses augmented reality to perform knee replacement surgeries.
The chief of surgery at Trinity Health Oakland in Pontiac claimed that it has really helped his practice and that he has performed around 10 knee replacement surgeries using this method.
He told CBS News Detroit that the AR glasses improve surgery precision to cut operation and recovery times. Dr. Kassab also views it as “a game changer.”
(1/2) Metro Detroit doctor uses #augmentedreality to perform surgeries. Alongside Vuzix partner @PixeeMedical, Dr. Safa Kassab, Chief of Surgery at Trinity Health, is the only surgeon in Michigan using #AR for surgeries. $vuzi #Healthcare https://t.co/mVkwD4yyIs
— Vuzix (@Vuzix) March 10, 2023
He then demonstrated how the AR glasses help him perform knee replacement surgeries:
“[The] glasses project an image onto my eye, and it allows me to see angles and measurements in real-time…. but they’re projected on the patient’s bone, therefore, being less invasive and just much more accurate.”
The CBS News report showed how the AR glasses look from the doctor’s perspective. The video showed the lenses projecting a knee’s angle of elevation. Meanwhile, the Illinois Bone & Joint Institute explains that manual knee replacement is the most common approach.
It requires surgeons to refer to specialized alignment guides. In contrast, AR surgery helps Dr. Kassab match a patient’s knee with these guides in real-time.
The news outlet stated that he is the only doctor using augmented reality technology to perform these operations. However, Dr. Kassab believes more fields of surgery will use AR in the future, saying:
“It’s already going there in a lot of different areas. A lot of it has to do with the things we deal with like Google… It’s called machine learning, you know, the glasses kind of learn. The more they do it, the more they learn, the more accurate they get.”
Numerous medical advancements prove Dr. Kassab’s claim. The Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine serves as an example. It holds a VR medical training program called HoloAnatomy so that students can learn human anatomy without needing cadavers.
Ilumis created the technology, and its CEO, Mark Day, stated in a press release, “Universities can reduce the expensive, time-consuming task of obtaining cadavers.”
