As a surgeon at a university hospital in Japan, I have building my own surgical roadmaps on my Mac Pro using OsiriX, which I found by browsing the Apple Web site in 2004. I was looking for ways to use imaging technology to improve surgical procedures. The combination of OsiriX and the Mac presented interesting possibilities.
We wanted to improve the way we navigate during major surgery. When we perform aggressive surgeries such as those for pancreatic cancer, we have to remove many organs, blood vessels, and lymph nodes if needed. If the cancer has invaded the vascular system, we have to determine its surgical margin to complete the resection and the vascular reconstruction. We knew pre-operative volume visualization would help us to be more efficient in the operating room.
Now we have a Japanese translation of OsiriX, which makes it even easier for us. Students and residents can use it easily. And we can do the segmentation on our personal desktops or laptops anytime. This is important: even if we’re working in the outpatient department at midnight, we can use OsiriX on a Mac to create 3D volumes from CT slices.
Surgeons and physicians familiar with OsiriX know it’s easy to work with OsiriX volumetric images, and that OsiriX handles segmentation and 3D rendering of DICOM images with ease. And they can see the value that visualization can have in the OR.
I have given presentations in many Japanese institutions explaining my techniques. Each presentation is usually followed by requests to give it elsewhere, including the US, Asia, and EU. A number of surgeons have seen the presentation, purchased Macs, downloaded OsiriX, and started using my visualization methods in surgery.