Operating room technology The OR of tomorrow


Hybrid operating rooms enable surgeons to use minimally invasive techniques that save patients’ lives and reduce risk – but the ongoing financial costs are still high. Will every OR eventually be hybrid, or are there times when an old-fashioned surgical theatre would do the job just as well? Kim Thomas asks Lars Kock, head of the department for vascular and endovascular surgery at Albertinen Hospital; Mark Slack, chief medical officer and co-founder of CMR Surgical; and Anthony Fernando, president and CEO of Asensus Surgical.


lbertinen Hospital in Hamburg has ten operating rooms. Since 2014, one of those has been a hybrid theatre, used exclusively in situations where at least part of the surgery is an endovascular procedure – a minimally invasive method of treating problems affecting blood vessels, such as implanting a stent to treat complex aortic aneurysms. Sometimes, the Albertinen surgeons will perform an endovascular procedure alongside a traditional open procedure, reducing the risk to the patient, who only has one dose of anaesthetic and


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one hospital stay rather than two. The simplest definition of a hybrid operating room is one that incorporates radiological imaging technology to guide a surgeon performing a minimally invasive (keyhole) procedure. The key component is a C-arm image intensifier, built either into the ceiling or the floor. Because it can be moved to any position above the patient’s body, the C-arm is able to produce a sharp X-ray image of the internal organ on which the surgeon is operating. This enables the surgeon to see even tiny body parts, such as thin heart vessels.


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