Hybrid OPERATING ROOM
Introduction - Hybrid operating room
The IGS7 Hybrid Operating Room by GE Healthcare at the Athens Medical Center represents one of the most advanced medical infrastructures in Greece. Thanks to its state-of-the-art technology, it enables vascular surgeons to perform highly specialized procedures for complex vascular diseases. We had the honor of inaugurating this facility, named “Prometheus,” in 2020. Four years later, the Vascular Surgery Department of Athens Medical Center continues to lead at a European level in innovation and in the successful treatment of the entire spectrum of vascular diseases.
Understanding hybrid surgery
The Hybrid operating room is the space that combines the presence of an imaging and navigation machine inside the vessels minimally invasively (hemodynamic laboratory) and at the same time has the best possible aseptic conditions (ISO 5 and above) for open surgical procedures.
The main advantage is its aseptic environment which is not achieved in any other hemodynamic laboratory. The placement of multiple grafts (stents, endografts, balloons, wires etc.) in the human body and mainly in the large vessels (aorta) must always be performed under the best possible aseptic conditions. The possibility of open surgical intervention under such aseptic conditions is of decisive importance in the case of an emergency (bleeding, vessel rupture etc.): this particular hybrid operating room allows the surgeon to immediately remove the angiograph machine from the surgical field to facilitate the emergency intervention and to fully maintain the asepsis of the surgical field.
The role of the vascular surgeon in the hybrid operating room
This particular Hybrid operating room of GE Healthcare constitutes a technological revolution because the software it possesses uses artificial intelligence (AI) in the correct and safe performance of vascular surgical procedures. One such indicative application, among others, is the ASSIST program: the software reads the preoperative CT angiography and applies it as a map on the imaging at the time of the procedure. In other words it combines the two images into one (fusion imaging) and assists navigation inside the vessels offering the surgeon a "road" map. This dramatically reduces both the radiation exposure and the quantity of iodinated contrast agent, which is toxic to the patient's kidneys, that the doctor would need to image the vessels one by one. Furthermore, the imaging machine (C-arm) performs before the completion of the procedure a three-dimensional examination of the result via CT scan on the operating table. The possibility of three-dimensional imaging on the operating table is of great importance as in the case of a complication or the need to correct a problem, this is performed before the completion of the procedure.
Vascular surgical procedures in the hybrid operating room
The vascular surgeons perform the entire spectrum of complex vascular surgical conditions in the Hybrid operating room of the Athens Medical Center. These conditions include the minimally invasive repair of:
- aortic arch and thoracoabdominal aneurysm
- carotid stenoses (carotid disease)
- aneurysms of the splanchnic vessels (splenic, renal artery)
- treatment of pulmonary embolism and deep venous thrombosis
- opening of the peripheral vessels in patients with peripheral arterial disease or diabetic foot
- treatment of erectile dysfunction
- special treatments for arteriovenous malformations and hemangiomas
- minimally invasive creation of fistula for hemodialysis patients.
