News
News
Operating with X-ray vision
Interview with Prof Weyhe in the magazine f&w
In the current issue of the magazine f&w - führen und Wirtschaften im Krankenhaus, Prof Weyhe was interviewed on the topic of holomedicine - operating with X-ray vision. The article was published in the November 2023 issue.
Lesson in digital medicine for members of the Bundestag
What are and how do virtual, augmented and mixed reality work in medicine? With the answers and comprehensive illustrative material in his luggage, Prof. Dr med. Dirk Weyhe and his working group from the University Clinic for Visceral Surgery at the Pius Hospital travelled to the Parliamentary Society in Berlin at the end of September. There he presented his innovative field of research and its clinical application to interested members of the Bundestag at a so-called Parliamentary Breakfast.
About 30 guests accepted the invitation on the initiative of MdB Simone Borchardt, including members of parliament from all democratic factions. They listened attentively to Dirk Weyhe's presentation. For this was about nothing less than the future of surgery. As one of the pioneers in Germany, the specialist in visceral oncological surgery is researching the field of holomedicine in clinical use and, together with his team, is contributing to decisive further developments. Using patient-specific CT data, three-dimensional holograms can be generated that are projected onto the situs during an operation. This makes it possible to visualise tumours much better and thus to operate more precisely. This is because anatomical and physiological structures and peculiarities are thus already visible when planning an operation, which in turn means more safety for patients. Junior doctors also benefit from the new possibilities. They can practise operations virtually with the models.
In addition, research is being conducted to further advance telemedicine through the new techniques. For example, it is possible for surgeons to go to operations in other parts of the country or countries as avatars to provide support there. "Particularly against the background of hospital closures, as is predicted in Germany, telemedicine services can be offered in the future if certain care structures are no longer available locally," reports Prof. Dirk Weyhe. "Although this is currently being implemented within the framework of research projects, policy-makers should of course already be informed about such options today in order to make health policy digital and future-proof. In addition, it is urgently necessary to make the appropriate funds available for further research, developments and the establishment of IT structures in order to further expand our current great lead in the field of holomedicine in Germany," was Weyhe's message in Berlin. The founders of the Hamburg software specialist apoQlar, whose software developments for the Microsoft HoloLens make the new methods possible for doctors, also travelled there. The parliamentarians were able to test these in the form of various devices such as VR and AR glasses, as well as speak directly with colleagues from Singapore in a live connection as an avatar in an operating theatre metaverse.
VIVATOP on NDR Visite
NDR Visite visited us and our VIVATOP project partners. The resulting report is available in the ARD media library.
Insight into our current research projects
The current issue of the Einblicke
For all those who are curious about our current research projects, here is the article about the University Department of Visceral Surgery in the current issue of the Einblicke.
Prof. Dr. Dirk Weyhe is one of the founding members of the Holomedicine Association
On Saturday 11/27/21, Prof. Dr. Dirk Weyhe was presented with the certificate establishing the Pius-Hospital as one of only 3 Holomedicine Centers of Excellence (HCoE) worldwide in an official ceremony at the inaugural Holomedicine Association Summit. As one of 40 founding members of the Holomedicine Association, Prof. Weyhe is committed to improving patient safety by establishing holomedicine in the areas of diagnosis, patient education, surgical planning, collegial consultation and performance of surgery. The only downer was the fact that the awarding of the certificate could not take place on site in Singapore due to the CORONA pandemic.
Further information about the Holomedicine Association can be found here.
Final meeting BMBF-VIVATOP
AR, VR and 3D printing: how this fits together and changes the surgical care of patients in the long term will be presented at the final meeting of our BMBF project VIVATOP on 23.03.22 between 1 and 6 pm as part of an open day.
If you are interested, in order to comply with the CORONA guidelines, please send a short informal registration to avc-forschung@uol.de.
Publication of our research pool-funded, randomised-controlled pPRP study
Our publication on micronutrient supply in patients with pancreatic cancer was published by Scientific Reports on 16.9.21. The study was funded by the research pool of the medical faculty. The paper can be found here.
Prof. Weyhe's interview with "medical designs" magazine
Prof. Dr. Weyhe was interviewed about the possible applications of immersive technologies such as AR and VR in the field of visceral surgery as part of the "In the OR of the Future" theme week of the journal "medical designs". The full interview can be found here .
And the VIVATOP project also presents some of the development results in this context.
Doctoral Colloquium Spring 2021
On 18 May, our regular doctoral students' colloquium took place again. In a mixture of online and face-to-face meetings, the following doctoral students provided insights into their current work:
- Fynn Piastowski: Quality of life of patients of working age after surgical treatment of an inguinal hernia (QuaLiHern)
- Pavel Gladki: Influence of the Corona pandemic on visceral surgical care reality - a bicentric study
- Dmitry Khmara: TEP after recurrence in initial TAP or TAPP for inguinal hernias
- Amelie Damann:Neural correlates of expert cognition during laparoscopic simulation - an EEG study
- Dennis Fried: Preoperative magnesium and calcium supplementation in thyroid patients - RCT
- Lilo Stroink: longitudinal measurement of vitamin D levels in clinicians
Thank you very much for the high quality and interesting presentations, which represent only a small part of the research activities at the Department of Visceral Surgery.
The next colloquium is planned for autumn this year. Medical students will then also be welcome as audience members to get a better insight into our research activities. If you are interested, please contact
Bachelor's or Master's thesis to be assigned
EEG-Messung von gebundener Aufmerksamkeit bei der präoperativen Planung von OPs mit AR und VR
Virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) are increasingly being used to support the preparation and performance of operations. In preparation, the main interest is which method leads to better results or, for the same results, which is easier to use, requires less attention and creates less cognitive load. Doctors and medical staff in training should plan several liver resections using the available VR and AR systems. In addition, if they can detach enough attention from the main task, they should respond to an acoustic oddball by pressing a button. The performance in this secondary task and the EEG signals measured during this task will be used to determine the attention bound by the primary task. In addition, subjects still rate their cognitive load in self-report. Beyond this research goal, this series of experiments serves to test the measurement of EEG during the use of VR and AR, and to establish a measurement and evaluation protocol. These will be a necessary basis for future measurements in this field. The results of the study will be published in relevant journals after peer review.
The work will be jointly supervised by research assistants from the University Hospital and staff from the Department of Psychology. We are looking for a person with a background in neuropsychology or physics, engineering, medicine. The work can be carried out at the level of both a Bachelor's and a Master's thesis.
Virtual status meeting of the VIVATOP project
For the 3rd time now, our consortium meeting for the VIVATOP project unfortunately had to take place virtually. Nevertheless, we had a productive meeting with all partners & a short visit from the project sponsor @VDIVDE_IT and we are looking forward to the rest of the project! For the latest information, please also follow us on Twitter (@vivatop_en).
The University Hospital at the Virtual German Surgical Congress 2021
Four staff members of the University Department of Visceral Surgery successfully presented five papers at the first virtual German Surgeons' Congress.
In the pre-congress, Dr Timur Cetin and Dr Verena Uslar reported on the BMBF project SmartOT and the establishment of a German questionnaire for measuring the quality of life of thyroid patients, repectively.
Dr. Navid Tabriz's lecture in the session for the best abstracts of the DCK was also dedicated to the topic of the thyroid gland, and Dr. Verena Uslar presented another lecture on the topic of teaching in the operating theatre.
There were two presentations from the VIVATOP project; one by our colleague Dr. Daniela Salzmann, and one by our project partner Anke Reinschlüssel from the University of Bremen (Digital Media Lab).
The lectures are not available anymore. You can find an overview of the lectures here:
Pius Hospital researches the operating theatre of the future
In the Smart-OT ("Smart Operating Theatre") project, research is being conducted into how novel, so-called smart lighting and control concepts, which are to be linked interactively and holistically, can provide for more quality, safety, ergonomics and efficiency in operating theatre processes. The aim is to reduce the workload of OR staff and thus ultimately also to increase patient safety. To this end, the demonstrators are tested in simulation operations in as realistic an environment as possible.
For this purpose, the team at the Pius Hospital, led by Prof. Dr. Dirk Weyhe, Director of the University Department of Visceral Surgery, is setting up a laboratory specially designed for such research questions, in which operations can be simulated and workflows in the operating theatre researched. In addition to the Pius Hospital, the companies Dr. Mach GmbH & Co KG (project manager), Qioptiq GmbH & Co KG and KIZMO GmbH are participating in the project. The University of Bremen is also involved with the working groups for digital media and for computer graphics and virtual reality. The project runs until 30 September 2021 and is funded with 1.2 million euros by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). At the end of last year, the initiators entered the intensive project phase in the form of a kick-off event.
VIVATOP at the Congress of the European Hernia Society in Hamburg
A look at the daily routine in German hospitals shows that most work is still done with a computer, keyboard and mouse. Surgery planning is done on the basis of 2D images on the screen. This can lead to problems during the operation. This is where the BMBF-funded VIVATOP project, with the participation of the University Department of Visceral Surgery at the Pius Hospital, comes in. Using modern techniques for virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) and 3D printing, the aim is to simplify surgery planning and execution and make training more realistic. The basis is the current image data of the patients. At the annual congress of the European Hernia Society in mid-September in Hamburg, the project participants from the Pius Hospital, the University of Bremen, apoQlar GmbH and the Fraunhofer Institute presented the project with initial results at a trade fair stand in order to make it known among possible other partners for follow-up projects. Congress President Dr. Wolfgang Reinpold from Hamburg also stopped by to take a look at the fascinating new possibilities and try them out for himself.
Journalistic platform reports on VIVATOP project
The BMBF project VIVATOP, in which the University Department of Visceral Surgery is involved, was described on "Innovation Origins", an independent journalistic platform: https://innovationorigins.com/de/vivatop-wie-vr-und-3d-druck-chirurgen-unterstuetzen/
VIVATOP stands for "Versatile Immersive Virtual and Augmented Tangible OR". The project combines model organs from the 3D printer with applications from VR and augmented reality. This should make it possible to plan operations better, while at the same time reducing risks for the patient.
As preliminary work for this large joint project, the University Department of Visceral Surgery and the Computer Graphics Group of the Technology Centre for Informatics and Information Technology (TZI) have developed an immersive anatomy atlas in a virtual environment.
Doctoral student exhibited at World-CUR
The second World Congress on Undergraduate Research (World CUR) took place at the University of Oldenburg from 23 to 25 May 2019(https://uol.de/en/worldcur2019/). In numerous lectures and poster presentations, around 400 students from 35 countries gave insights into their research work.
At the congress, the Johannes Grone, doctoral student at the University Clinic for Visceral Surgery and former student of the European Medical School Oldenburg-Groningen, also very successfully presented the results of his work. He is working on the "Influence of the BRAF mutation on the outcome in thyroid carcinomas".
The BRAF V600E mutation (BRAF+) is the most common genetic cause of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) and can occur in up to 80 percent of cases. Some studies show that the detection of a BRAF V600E mutation as a characteristic of a more aggressive tumour is associated with higher recurrence probability and lymph node metastases, so that a more extensive surgical strategy should be pursued if the mutation is detected preoperatively in the fine needle aspiration. However, the significance of this molecular diagnostic method is still controversial. Johannes Grone analysed 382 histological specimens from the years 2007-2016 and investigated the extent to which a BRAF mutation existed in his own collective and what influence a positive mutation detection has on various outcome parameters.
The results with regard to malignant lymph nodes, tumour invasiveness and multifocality indicate that a BRAF mutation is associated with more aggressive tumour behaviour, but does not influence the recurrence rate. In case of positive BRAF mutation detection in a fine needle aspiration, surgical therapy should follow. However, the extent of this surgery remains unclear. Especially with regard to microcarcinomas, it remains to be discussed to what extent BRAF+ microcarcinomas can be observed or whether resection should be extended for BRAF+ tumours.
Best Poster Award won
The University Department of Visceral Surgery won the "Best Poster Award" in one of the three categories of the German Society of Surgery at the 136th Congress of the German Society of Surgery.
Is it better to acquire anatomical knowledge in the traditional way with a book or in a virtual environment? A project of the working group of PD Dr. Dirk Weyhe, University Department of Visceral Surgery, dealt with this question. For this project, groups of students tried out both methods last year. The result - an interactive anatomy atlas actually seems to be superior to the classic book - was presented at the 136th Congress of the German Society for Surgery in Munich at the end of March. The corresponding presentation on a scientific poster received the "Best Poster" award, which the staff of the University Department of Visceral Surgery were very pleased about.
