A small, flexible, disposable camera is making a huge difference in spinal surgery.
On December 03, 2024, Daniel Sciubba, MD, and senior vice president of neurosurgery at Northwell Spine Institute, New York, performed the first surgery using the Teligen Spine Surgery System.
The surgery was performed on a 65-year-old woman with a spinal tumor. Ordinarily, the operation to remove the two separate tumors – one on the spinal cord and one on the bone – would be a complex and demanding surgery, both for the surgeons and the patient. The anatomical structure of the spine and proximity to major blood vessels, nerves, internal organs, and the spinal cord all add risk to any surgery in this area.
Patients would need to have their spines x-rayed multiple times to obtain real-time images of the area in need of surgery. The Teligen camera reduces patient exposure to these rays by 47%.
Calling it a “game changer”, Dr Sciubba said “In the past, the issue with taking out a spinal tumor in one piece was that it was hard to see all the cuts to make from one approach, so it had to be done in multiple stages. Teligen uses a mobile camera, so we can look around corners within the surgical site.”
The equipment was developed by DePuy Synthes, the orthopedic company of Johnson & Johnson, the Teligen system uses a tower with a 4K high-definition screen monitor and a tiny disposable camera attached to a flexible wire which is inserted into the surgical site of the patient.
The surgeon can then manipulate the camera in all directions and can view the high-definition images in real-time on the screen.
If the lens gets anything on it, and the images get blurry during surgery, the camera has a self-cleaning mechanism – similar to a windscreen washer.
As well as being used in larger surgeries like tumor removal, Teligen can be deployed in more minimally invasive surgeries, where the patient can go home the same day.
Removing two tumors from the spinal cord and the bone in one procedure
“Northwell’s investment in technologies such as Teligen enables us to take on the most complex spinal surgeries and do them in ways that are innovative and pioneering,” said Dr Sciubba. “We can do these surgeries in less time, with smaller incisions and less damage to surrounding normal tissues. It allows us to treat patients more safely and efficaciously.”
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