Doctors perform historic surgery with aid of virtual reality

It wasn’t going to be easy to remove a brain tumor threatening the life of 2-year-old Ari Ellman of San Francisco. Experts at several US hospitals weren’t even sure it was possible. But Ari’s tumor was removed, piece by piece, in a groundbreaking endonasal surgery lasting nearly 18 hours.

Following three more surgeries and six weeks in the pediatric ICU, Ari is “a gorgeous healthy boy who’s loving and living life to the fullest,” according to his mom. It was a historic surgery. Neurosurgeons at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital of Stanford University had never done this procedure on a child so young. They felt confident enough to try the risky surgery because they were able to rehearse it to perfection using the Surgical Theater system developed by former Israel Air Force officers Moty Avisar and Alon Geri. Surgical Theater began in 2010 with the idea of giving neurosurgeons the ability to prepare for specific surgeries the way fighter pilots prepare for specific missions. Today, the virtual reality visualization platform is in 15 leading US hospitals, such as New York University, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, Houston Methodist, George Washington University, Mount Sinai, Stanford and Children’s National Hospital. Some hospitals purchased five or six Surgical Theater systems and are using it also for cardiac and spinal surgery preparation as well as for training student surgeons.-- More...