First Light Field-Enabled Spine Surgery Navigation Platform Reduces Need for Intraoperative Radiation

By HospiMedica International staff writers
Posted on 31 Jul 2023

Image: The Paradigm advanced surgical navigation system (Photo courtesy of Proprio)

The human body, with its complex and dynamic structures, represents one of the world's most diverse and valuable data sources. Yet, conventional surgical navigation systems capture minimal intraoperative data, relying largely on preoperative data to guide procedures and using high-radiation intraoperative scans to fill in the missing information. Now, an innovative spine surgery navigation platform is leveraging light field technology and artificial intelligence to create a real-time 3D visualization of surgical operations, offering a sophisticated alternative to traditional surgical navigation technologies that can distract surgeons and disrupt workflow.

Proprio’s (Seattle, WA, USA) Paradigm spine surgery navigation platform is the first to incorporate light field technology into spine surgery navigation, generating a real-time 3D view of the surgical area and anatomy. The system employs a state-of-the-art sensor suite to gather high-definition multimodal intraoperative images and merges this data with preoperative scans. This technology equips surgeons with valuable information, including intraoperative imaging and robust visualization capabilities, without the need for harmful radiation or interrupting workflow.

The Paradigm platform offers numerous benefits for both surgeons and patients. It eliminates the requirement for intraoperative scans, thereby reducing radiation exposure for patients and surgical staff, and saving up to 30 minutes per procedure, which enhances patient care availability. By quickly aligning imaging data with the anatomy within surgical workflows, Paradigm ensures high accuracy and allows surgeons to maintain their focus on the patient. The real-time, 3D, multi-modal data from Proprio presents a substantial improvement over current static surgical navigation methods. The company anticipates applying its technology to a range of surgical specialties beyond its initial applications in spine procedures. Capable of amassing a wealth of surgical data, Proprio's Paradigm system could be instrumental in developing numerous applications beyond the conventional approaches to surgery. The Paradigm system has received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

"We are very enthusiastic about the potential for Paradigm to enable clinicians to revolutionize spine surgery," said Gabriel Jones, CEO and Co-Founder of Proprio. "We're reimagining how surgery is done, rather than reconfiguring legacy tools. This uniquely positions our system to effectively capture the valuable data needed to feed advanced computer vision and deep learning models to recognize, track and analyze complex anatomical structures. The potential of this technology in the hands of skilled clinicians has us all very optimistic about the future of surgical practice."

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