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German firm, JHU team up for surgery
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BALTIMORE (Map, News) - It used to be that the larger the operation, the greater the cuts, stitches and recovery required.
Now, surgeons are increasingly moving toward minimally invasive surgery, turning to high-tech tools to reduce the trauma and recovery time.
A new partnership forged between Johns Hopkins University and a German biomedical engineering firm, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, brings together experts in the field to develop minimally invasive surgical tools.
“It gives us a stellar team to try and attack these problems,” said Elliot McVeigh, a professor and director of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins.
The technology required for these surgeries is “essentially being designed right now by these groups of engineers,” McVeigh said.
Through the 15-month partnership researchers will develop a computer-aided tool for diagnosing gastrointestinal disease, a tool that aligns CT scans during surgery and a system to track surgical tools during the procedure.
Minimally invasive surgery means smaller incisions so there is less trauma and quicker recovery, said Dr. Scott Roth, associate professor of surgery and surgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
The philosophy and the technology exploded in the mid-’90s, and now has become fairly routine, one of the most common being gall bladder removal, he said.
The technology has certain limitations, but the medical community has been “working with the industry to develop solutions to the problems,” Roth said.
The technique heralds the future of surgery when surgeons can make a single incision or enter through an orifice such as the mouth and use more flexible instruments to make twists and turns, he said.
At Johns Hopkins, the international partnership is another example of the school’s collaborations in the United States and beyond, said Wesley Blakeslee, executive director of the university’s Technology Transfer, which works as a liaison to researchers.
“Collaboration is more of a rule than it is an exception,” he said.
smichael@baltimoreexaminer.com
Comments from Examiner Readers
8:35 AM MST on Tue., Jul. 8, 2008 re: "Johns Hopkins brain surgery hits prime time in science news show"
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12:12 PM MST on Thu., Jul. 3, 2008
re: "German firm, JHU team up for surgery"
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Workin Stiff said:
Do you think Dr. Hinojosa could do similar surgery on Owe'Malley. Open his skull and get him to say "Raise taxes", when the good doctor finds the area of his brain responsible for that thought---remove it. It might be the only hope for the working families of Maryland.
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Examiner Reader said:
The University of Maryland Medical Center was the first hospital in Maryland--and only the third in the United States--to perform a gall bladder removal in a minimally invasive way, using a laparoscope. That was in September 1989. Starting then, UM surgeons taught other surgeons throughout Maryland and the US how to perform the technique and worked with instrument companies to develop new tools specifically for that new approach to operations. Today, even some of the most complex surgeries--removal of kidneys from living donors for transplant and heart bypass surgeries--are performed without a big incision. It means much faster recovery for patients--a huge advance spurred almost 20 years ago by innovative University of Maryland surgeons who continue to work on new techniques to carry minimally invasive even further.
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