Companies partner for remote surgery option

At left, Gilad Litvin, MD, performs the training from Israel, using RSVP. At right, David Rootman, MD, performs the surgery from Canada, using the same technology. (Images courtesy of CorNeat Vision)

CorNeat Vision and LiveU have partnered to implement an on-demand Remote Surgeon Virtual Presence (RSVP) solution.

The companies cooperated with Alcon to leverage its NGENUITY 3D visualization system to perform remote supervised hands-on training of Canadian

cornea experts located at the Kensington Eye Institute in Toronto, without leaving Israel.

According to the companies, the solution was engineered to address COVID-19 travel restrictions. It also enabled initiation of the Canadian clinical site toward first implantations of the CorNeat KPro artificial cornea.

“With sub second latency, and a crisp, clear, hi-resolution, stereoscopic video signal projected to my Goovis 3D head-mounted display, it felt as if I beamed onto the objective lens of the remote ophthalmic microscope in Canada,” Gilad Litvin, MD, CorNeat Vision founder and chief medical officer, said in a statement. “The RSVPsolution is a game changer in terms of our ability to expand our clinical trial to additional sites during the pandemic.”

Litvin said the technology also can help facilitate the launch of its artificial cornea, allowing the company to train physicians all over the world without leaving their office.

"It was as if Gilad was right here with me," David Rootman, MD, a cornea expert and the primary investigator leading the Canadian artificial cornea clinical trial at the Toronto Western Hospital, part of the University Health Network, said in a statement. "Our ability to perform this training successfully is key in enabling us to initiate our trial without reliance on international travel.”

Ronen Artman, vice president of marketing at LiveU, said the company’s portable transmission solution enabled the partners to remotely connect to the microscope's 3D video output without any technical assistance.

“While this unit alone enables streaming video for trainees, for example, the implementation of our bonded video decoder on the trainer side in Israel provided the low latency needed for the surgeons to interact in real-time while sharing a high-resolution 3D image,” he said in a statement.

“The ability to stream high resolution 3D video, critical in ophthalmic surgeries, directly from the operating room in real time opens up a wide range of applications and use cases for us,” Franck Leveiller, Senior Vice President, Head of Global Research and Development at Alcon, said in a statement.

Leveiller noted that the solution also allows its customers to leverage their investment to enable remote surgeon training, and remote expert supervision during live procedures.

“The RSVP solution is a true enabler during the pandemic,” he concluded.