Surgery

1min
Published on December 17, 2020

Surgeons were quick to consider using the newly discovered X-rays in the operating theater. However, some technological developments were required before X-rays could become established there. Today, it is impossible to imagine vascular, cardiac, thoracic, or neurosurgery, abdominal, orthopedic, trauma, or spine surgery without image-guided interventions and direct surgical control.

<p>Intraoperative 3D imaging in orthopedic and trauma surgery helps position implants and screws more accurately and to optimally reposition bone fragments, while also reducing complications and costly revision surgery.</p>
Intraoperative 3D imaging: more precision and reduced surgical revisions
<p>A hybrid operating room is at the heart of the new operating and intensive care center of the LKH-Feldkirch, Austria, a specialist care hospital. Building the hybrid OR was a farsighted decision – in a very literal sense.</p>
Working in a hybrid OR: Visionary medical care
<p>It wasn’t long before surgeons began experimenting with the use of X-rays during operations. In 1897, for example, the Frankfurt physician Gustav Spiess described an operation in which he opened a patient’s frontal sinus via their nose and tracked the movements of his drill “on the [fluorescent] screen at every moment.” Nevertheless, it would be decades before X-rays became a fully established tool in the operating room.</p>
X-ray technology – the pearl of the operating room