On July 31, Hao Dingjun, Director of Xi’an Honghui Hospital, together with Shan Lequn, Head of Spinal Degeneration and Oncology Department, and several other spinal surgeons, successfully performed the spinal deformity orthopedic surgery for a 15-year-old patient under the guidance of “Mixed Reality” technology for the first time.

Fangfang is a 15-year-old girl from a small county in Ningxia. When she was 5 years old, her family discovered that she was “unique”. Her shoulders were different in height. Her neck and back were different from others with a large visible bump. She was examined at a local hospital, and the X-ray showed scoliosis deformity. However, at that time, Fangfang was too young to realize that she was different from other people. This matter has not caused the attention of her parents.

As Fangfang grew up, the spinal deformity became more and more serious, and Fangfang began to discover that she was different from others. When she was a child, Fangfang was lively, cheerful and fond of laughing. With the development of spinal deformity, her “unique” became more and more obvious. Now she is inferior, sensitive, and does not like to communicate with others. Only then did her parents realize how much the disease affected their children, not only physically but also psychologically.

Her parents were eager to solve the problem of their children. After consulting with many people, they knew that this was a very complicated operation with high risks. Then, Fangfang began to shrink back. Which hospital can do such a big operation? After all, Fangfang is still too young. After many investigations and verifications, they learned that Xi’an Honghui Hospital is one of the three major orthopaedic centers in China, and the Spinal Disease Hospital is the earliest, largest and most specialized spine specialized hospital in northwest China. Therefore, they came to the Xi’an Honghui Hospital for treatment. After coming to the Xi’an Honghui Hospital, they further learned that the doctor was planned to perform orthopedic surgery for Fangfang’s spinal deformity under the guidance of the “Mixed Reality” technology. They learned that the doctor can clearly see the condition of the patient’s lesion site with a pair of glasses by using this technology. In addition, they learned that the Director Hao Dingjun will perform the operation personally. Fangfang’s family felt that she really came to the right place this time.

Before the operation, Hao Dingjun, the Director of Xi’an Honghui Hospital and the Diagnosis and Treatment Team of Spinal Disease Hospital arranged and organized multidisciplinary consultation for Fangfang. According to the patient’s condition, they carried out case discussions from the aspects of intra-operative bleeding, surgical methods and perioperative management, and finally determined the surgical plan and risk response plan.

The operation was very successful. Fangfang and her parents were very happy. Fangfang’s parents hoped that with the correction of Fangfang’s spinal deformity, Fangfang’s personality could be as lively and cheerful as her childhood.

According the Head Shan Lequn, traditional spinal osteotomy and orthopedic surgery is extremely difficult and risky. The utilization of "Mixed Reality" navigation technology has greatly shortened the operation time and reduced the pain of patient. The MR (Mixed Reality) technology builds an interactive information loop between the virtual world, the real world and users by introducing the real-world scene information into the virtual environment, so as to enhance the sense of reality of user experience. The 3D model of tissue structure recovered from patient imaging data is taken as the viewing object. The virtual model is perfectly integrated with the real environment.

For the advantages of "Mixed Reality" navigation technology, the Director Hao Dingjun said that in the past, doctors could only rely on examination results of CT and MR to “imagine” the pathological changes of patient in the brain. In contrast, the MR technology is to transfer the CT or NMR data of patient to the system for reading to generate a 3D holographic model. With the help of mixed reality glasses, the doctor can clearly see the 3D image of the lesion part of the patient, and can hide, scale, rotate and move the image and change the transparency of the image.

The traditional doctor-patient communication has been transformed by this technology. The presentation of this technology enables patients to have a more intuitive understanding of their own conditions and corresponding therapeutic plans in the process of doctor-patient communication. Therefore, the misunderstanding caused by the unequal medical information of the two parties is reduced. And the anxiety of patients can be effectively relieved.

In terms of preoperative planning, doctors can fully observe the details of the lesion by means of presentation of holographic images. While deep delving the image information, doctors can have a clearer understanding of the spatial structure and relationship of bones, nerves and blood vessels to make the most reasonable planning for the surgery. The presentation of holographic images is of great significance for preoperative path design.

During surgery, the superposition of the model with the patient’s actual lesion is like giving the doctor a pair of X-ray eyes. It provides doctors with more valuable image information and effectively improved spatial perception. The doctor can “master all the information” during the surgery, which improves the accuracy and safety of the surgery, and also ensures the postoperative recovery of the patient.

In a word, the application of “MR” navigation technology in orthopedic surgery for spinal deformity is of great significance.