One of Apple’s newest products may offer a breakthrough for surgeons.
A new study from the University of California (UC), San Diego found that certain surgeries were 19% faster when doctors were wearing an Apple Vision Pro, the tech-forward headset.
The findings, which were published in the peer-reviewed journal AJO International, suggest that the headset was associated with shorter operating times during tear-duct surgeries.
The study analysed 32 consecutive endoscopic dacryocystorhinostomy procedures – a tear-duct operation performed through the nose with an endoscope. All of the surgeries were completed by one of five surgeons.
Half of the surgeries used the Vision Pro as the main display while the other half were size-matched controls done with a standard monitor.
While the procedure itself did not change, where the surgeon stood to see the image did. Typically, the live endoscopic feed appears on a monitor parked across the room, so the surgeon looks away from the patient to see it. But with the headset, that feed sits directly in the surgeon’s field of view.
Vision Pro cases averaged 34.4 minutes, compared with 42.7 for the monitor group. In the NASA Task Load Index, an index that measures perceived mental and physical workload during or after a task, all of the surgeons favoured the headset.
Bobby S. Korn, MD, PhD, a professor of ophthalmology at UC San Diego and the study’s lead author, told Inc that when surgeons use a traditional tower-mounted monitor, the image that they are working with sits in a fixed position. “The surgeon’s head, neck, and posture have to accommodate it for the length of the case. With a wearable display, the image comes to the surgeon instead.”
Implications for the future of surgery
Korn said that the ability to improve posture and attention for operating doctors is of paramount importance. Using the Apple Vision Pro, “the surgeon spends less effort accommodating the equipment and more on the operation.”
The cost of “sustained awkward posture” can accumulate over the years and put surgeons at a disadvantage. Additionally, having a large monitor in the operating room takes up finite space. The Apple Vision Pro is much smaller.
Before recommending the approach broadly, Korn and his team want randomisation, multiple centres and procedures, and objective measurements. The study, he stressed, does not show the headset made surgery safer, only that “the cases were faster and less demanding on the surgeon without anything being given up.”
“This was a small, single-centre, non-randomised study of 32 cases. Functional success was 100% in both groups, and there were no complications in either, so the study does not show that the headset made surgery safer.”
He added: “What it shows is that the cases were faster and less demanding on the surgeon without anything being given up. The findings are encouraging and preliminary, and they need confirmation in a larger controlled trial.” – Inc./Tribune News Service
