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Magic Leap 2 Gains Certification so Doctors Can Use AR During Surgery

January 6, 2023 From roadtovr

Magic Leap, the storied unicorn developing enterprise AR headsets, announced at CES 2023 that its flagship device Magic Leap 2 earned a certification that clears it for use in the operating room.

The company first intimated it had pursued IEC 60601-1 certification at SPIE’s XR conference in January 2022, however the news largely went unreported since the information was presented in a single slide at the conference.

At AMD’s CES 2023 keynote, Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson confirmed Magic Leap 2 has indeed obtained IEC 60601-1 certification for its flagship AR headset.

As explained by TÜV Rheinland, the IEC 60601-1 certification specifies a device that is “intended to diagnose, treat, or monitor a patient under medical supervision and, which makes physical or electrical contact with the patient and/or transfers energy to or from the patient and/or detects such an energy transfer to or from the patient.”

Magic Leap says this certification allows Magic Leap 2 to be used both in an operating room as well as in other clinical settings, allowing medical professionals such as surgeons to focus on the patient and not have to refer to 2D screens.

By and large, this gives software developers a non-inconsequential inroad into gaining FDA certification for apps that could be used during surgery, and not just for pre-surgical training.

One such Magic Leap partner, SentiAR, is currently under review by the FDA for its app which connects physicians to live clinical data and images, allowing them do operations such as navigating a catheter through blood vessels of the heart using a 3D map of a patient’s heart and the location of the catheter in real time.

Founded in 2010, the Plantation, Florida-based company initially exited the gate with consumer ambitions for its first AR headset, Magic Leap 1 (previously styled ‘One’). After awkwardly straddling the segment with its $2,300 AR headset, the company made a decisive pivot in mid-2020 when CEO and co-founder Rony Abovitz announced he would be stepping down as CEO, positioning the company to reprioritize its future devices away from consumers. It has since released Magic Leap 2, which is largely targeted at enterprise.

The well-funded company, which has amassed $4 billion in lifetime funds to date, has recently taken on $450 million from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, giving the country a majority share in the US-based augmented reality company.

Filed Under: AR News, ar surgery, Magic Leap, Magic Leap 2, Medical Applications, News, VR surgery

Rare Conjoined Twin Surgery Aided by VR Training, Bridging the Gap Between Two Continents

August 3, 2022 From roadtovr

Practice makes perfect, especially when it comes to life-saving procedures that deal with extreme edge cases like separating conjoined twins. Now a UK-Brazilian team have done just that, which is thanks to detailed planning sessions which allowed the surgical team to model and rehearse the operation in VR from two different continents.

As reported by BBC News, three-year-olds Bernardo and Arthur Lima were born conjoined at the cranium, also know as craniopagus twins.

Now, after seven surgeries, the boys have effectively become the oldest craniopagus twins to have been separated, a process which concluded in a final surgery that lasted 27 hours and involved around 100 medical staff.

Bernardo and Arthur Lima before separation | Image courtesy PA, BBC News

The operation was carried out in Rio de Janeiro with direction from Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

The planning stage took place over a six-month period which, lead by UK surgeon Dr. Noor ul Owase Jeelani, incorporated models of the twins based on CT and MRI scans which were imported into a program that allowed the Brazilian and UK teams to collaborate in real-time via VR headsets.

“In some ways these operations are considered the hardest of our time, and to do it in virtual reality was just really man-on-Mars stuff,” said Dr. Jeelani.

Bernardo and Arthur Lima after separation | Image courtesy PA, BBC News

Gemini Untwined, the charity founded by Dr. Jeelani, dubbed it “one of the most complex separation processes ever completed.”

“It’s a near impossible task [separating craniopagus twins] that requires a lot of thinking, a lot of planning, and when the final execution happens and you end up with two live kids that are making a good recovery is a great experience.” Dr. Jeelani said in a BBC interview.

Arthur and Bernardo will be celebrating their 4th birthday next month, and are making what Dr. Jeelani says is “an excellent recovery.”

Filed Under: Medical Applications, Medical VR, News, virtual reality medicine, virtual reality surgery, vr medicine, VR surgery

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