12/16/2011

World’s first Curve Image Guided Surgery system now operating in Germany

Highly advanced surgical navigation system to enable faster, more precise and safer surgery

This week, university hospital Klinikum rechts der Isar in Munich, Germany, is the first hospital in the world to operating Brainlab’s Curve Image Guided Surgery system. Curve is Brainlab’s latest generation of image-guided surgery systems. The new technology provides surgeons with better guidance and control during surgery enabling faster, more precise and safer interventions.

Professor Meyer operating the new Curve navigation platform in the operating room of the neurosurgical clinic at Klinikum rechts der Isar Hospital, Munich.

Curve is a highly advanced navigation system which integrates the state-of-the-art software from Brainlab to allow instantaneous 3D visualization during surgery. Importantly, during surgery, ultra-fast image updates to its advanced display screens allow surgical instruments to be navigated immediately by surgeons.

Professor Bernhard Meyer, chairman of the Neurosurgery Department at Klinikum rechts der Isar, commented: “We are extremely happy to be able to use the Curve system to support surgery as we believe it can offer advantages for both patients and medical staff. Curve is much more user-friendly than any other surgical navigation system we have used before and offers tools that will help improve outcomes for our patients. For example, by having ultra-fast access to updated images in the operating room allows us to make informed decisions on-the-spot and best-possible intra-operative control.”

The new navigation platform also has multiple interfaces to support image sharing and enhancement. Its streaming option also enables surgeons to transfer live images to a PC outside the operating room, thus allowing other experts to view surgery as it happens. Brainlab’s clinical online network Quentry further supports safe and fast sharing of patient data with colleagues around the world via cloud computing. The open architecture of the system facilitates the exchange between clinical users so that patients are able to benefit from combined medical expertise.
Other benefits of the system include a motorized camera that can be adjusted effortlessly at any point during the intervention using steering buttons on the monitor. Plus eight multidirectional wheels with cable deflectors which allow medical staff to rapidly manoeuvre the Curve system in and out of the operating room as required.

The Curve product development has been extremely guided by clinical user feedback. The result is an intuitive device that powers ultra-fast image updating and session-sharing. Curve has been presented to the medical community at congresses in Washington and Rome in October 2011.

Stefan Vilsmeier, CEO and President of Brainlab, commented: “When we started developing Curve, we set ourselves the goal to overcome the barriers of traditional navigation in the operating room. Our new navigation platform connects the operating room to the outside world through various interfaces. Surgeons can share and enrich data or consult with other medical experts at any time. Image Guided Surgery is becoming now Information Guided Surgery.”