A surgeon at AdventHealth for Children has performed the health system's first pediatric spine surgery with a recently cleared spinal navigation device.
Raymund Woo, MD, a spine surgeon and director of pediatric orthopedics at AdventHealth for Children, used the 7D Surgical Flash system to perform a complex procedure on an 11-year-old girl who was the daughter of Jeaudine Hill, MD, a family medicine physician at AdventHealth.
The procedure corrected a 65-degree spinal curvature in the girl to ensure that her scoliosis did not get any worse, Dr. Woo said in an Aug. 9 news release.
The Orlando-based hospital is the first on the East Coast to perform a pediatric spine surgery with Flash, which "provides a new way of being able to incorporate the latest breakthroughs in optical technology to make it faster, easier and safer to do surgery," Dr. Woo said.
The device uses radiation-free technology to assist surgeons placing spinal implants. Surgeons follow the outline of an X-ray or CT scan to complete the surgery more efficiently, according to 7D Surgical.
"For the patient, that means less radiation, less blood loss, less recovery time, less infection and less pain," Dr. Woo said.
Flash is the flagship technology of 7D Surgical, a Toronto-based startup that SeaSpine acquired for a reported $110 million in May.
The device costs about $450,000 — less than half the price of traditional imaging systems — and can complete the entire patient registration process in less than 30 seconds, compared to the 30 minutes common with traditional systems, according to the company.