Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

During orthopaedic surgeries, surgeons use X-ray imaging to detect bone and implant positions with a mobile C-arm (so-named due to the C shape, with the X-ray source on one side and the detector on the other). This is essential to get a visual sense of the locations of the instruments and implants with respect to the anatomy of the patient. There is huge untapped potential for using these devices beyond their current use for improving the accuracy of the surgery and reducing the surgical time and radiation dose. If fitted with appropriately accurate and low-cost technology, these devices can provide two very important advantages that can revolutionize how these very broadly available devices are used. First, they can provide unprecedented capability for accurate measurements from large images of the anatomy and allow assessment of the position of the bone and instruments in three dimensions. This is critical for many surgeries because incorrect placement of implants can lead to poor outcome for the patient or a longer time under anesthesia. Second, the new technology can help the surgical staff to find an image of interest very quickly without trial and error and the waste of costly surgical time. With current systems, it can take considerable time to orient the C-arm properly because of the difficulty of communicating between the surgeon and the C-arm operator (radiation technologist). Numerous X-rays are taken during this time, exposing the patient and surgical staff to radiation. To address these, our multi-disciplinary team of experts from UBC, UofC, and BCIT will collaborate to combine their existing innovative technologies to develop and validate novel surgical imaging equipment that can be implemented in all operating rooms across Canada to offer better care for the patients. We will have support from three Canadian companies for the next stage of commercialization and business development of the product.