A collaborative team of doctors successfully operated on conjoined twins, scientifically defined as craniopagus. This complex operation, which is an extremely risky type of surgery, was performed thanks to virtual reality technology.
The operation took 27 hours.
Three-year-old conjoined twins Barnardo and Arthur, who underwent surgery, made history as the oldest couple to have a common skull and to be in the process of separation. While the operation lasted 27 hours, nearly 100 health workers participated in the operation.
Surgeons practiced for months thanks to virtual reality
Before the complex surgery, a group of surgeons from different countries practiced for months in an operating room created using virtual reality technology. The VR test, created using CT and MRI scans of the twins, played a key role in the operation.
A study published in July 2022 found that surgeons performing various operations on VR models reduced the number of serious surgical outcomes such as nerve damage. A year ago, FundamentalVR announced its virtual reality training platform with haptic feedback to provide doctors with more realistic surgical training. In addition to surgical training, VR is used in many areas such as eliminating phobias and getting rid of addiction.
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