Dr. David M. Farrington and his team have incorporated 7D technology for surgery on a 14-year-old boy suffering from a progressive severe scoliosis.
Said like this, coldly and in a rush, the news may seem like one more. But is not. This is the fourth intervention of this type carried out in Spain and the first in private healthcare, specifically at the Quirónsalud Sagrado Corazón Hospital in Seville. And from here a horizon of extraordinary possibilities is open.
Talking about 7D technology is using big words in the field of next-generation virtual reality. To explain it easily: when we talk about 3D we refer to a depth effect in the images that are in front of us on a screen and that we can see with or without glasses. 7D technology allows immersion within a reality, experiencing smells, immersive sound and even sensations.
Consequently, its applications are infinite and suggestive in the field of science fiction or our most immediate future. But you don’t have to go that far: current medicine, here in Spain, is already beginning to use this tool to tackle scoliosis surgery in a child patient.
risky surgery
It is in these severe cases that surgery intervenes. The doctor Farrington and his team carry out more than thirty interventions a year in the Pediatric Traumatology and Orthopedics Service of Quirónsalud Sagrado Corazón in Seville. It is a surgery based on the implantation of pedicle screws in the patient’s spine. Dr. Farrington himself explains that “this technique is not without risk because any error in the orientation of a screw can have devastating consequences, since large caliber arteries or veins are found on the outside of the vertebra that could suffer an injury. severe vascular; and on the inside is the spinal cord, which, if damaged, could cause paraplegia. This means that we must be extremely precise in order not to cause irreversible sequelae to the patient».
It is at this point that 7D technology intervenes. For surgical correction of navigation-guided scoliosis, a CT scan is performed on the patient prior to the intervention. Based on this test, the 7D technology performs a virtual recreation of the patient’s spine where, after marking three reference points by the surgeon, it will indicate the exact orientation where the pedicle screws should be inserted. «The navigator acts as a GPS, guiding the surgeon for precise screw placementexplains Dr. Farrington.
In this way, the 7D system not only provides safety for both the patient and the surgeon, minimizing the risks of surgery by showing exactly the path that the pedicle screw must follow, but also avoids exposing the patient to ionizing radiation. during surgery, which is especially important in the case of pediatric patients.
According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), between 2 and 3 percent of children and adolescents are affected by scoliosis.
The Spanish Association of Pediatrics has published studies that prove the presence of this disease among adolescents in certain areas in figures much higher than 10 percent.
For this reason, and beyond science fiction, this application of 7D technology, already presented in our country, solves one of the main drawbacks of traditional navigation systems, allowing surgeons to perform spinal surgeries faster , efficient, profitable and without radiation and thus opens a horizon of hope for many scoliosis patients, much more suggestive every day.