3-D Graphics Simulate Practice Surgery for Brain Surgeons

Neurosurgeons in the works may be able to get some much needed practice via the help from computers to study brain surgery before beginning actual procedures. According to the National Research Council of Canada, input from surgeons at more than 20 Canadian teaching hospitals is helping to build the skills of trainees working on basic surgical knowledge that will soon be put into practice using what researchers are referring to as NeuroTouch. 

This software, developed by a team of over 50 experts, produces 3-D graphics that simulate images during surgery, including detailed, lifelike renderings of brain tissue, blood vessels and tumors.

Researchers worked to harness these tools through various graphics produced via computer screen. Students have been able to remove brain tissues, tumors and other masses via the computer programming.

All of the previously mentioned tasks were developed using 3-D reconstructions of magnetic resonance imaging scan data from actual patients. The researchers hope that with further development, this will not only allow surgeons to just practice procedures, but it can also allow the simulation of actual operations, possibly based on a patients own MRI scan.

Though the NeuroTouch system appears to be a promising tool for the future of virtual reality technology in the medical field, Dr. Rolando Del Maestro, the director of the institute's Neurological Simulation Research Centre, notes, via Live Science, that in order to avoid costly mistakes in the real world, the use of the software should be eased into medical educational facilities.

"This is not something that can be brought in [to surgical training programs] right away. You can imagine the backlash would be on something like this," Del Maestro said, via Live Science.

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The study regarding NeuroTouch was published in fall of 2012 in the journal Neurosurgery.