MiE contributes imaging expertise to the “Operating Room of the Future”
Advanced medical imaging meets augmented reality, artificial intelligence and robotic surgery
MiE Medical Imaging Electronics GmbH is part of the interdisciplinary joint project “Operating Room of the Future”, bringing its extensive expertise in medical imaging to the development of new technologies for image-guided and robot-assisted surgery.
The project brings together specialists from medicine, medical technology, engineering and information technology with the aim of making surgical procedures more precise, efficient and patient-friendly.
Combining imaging, augmented reality and robotics
Modern surgery increasingly relies on the precise combination of anatomical and functional information. The “Operating Room of the Future” project takes this concept a significant step further by combining medical imaging, augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic assistance.
One of the project’s key objectives is the development of an augmented reality solution that provides surgeons with additional three-dimensional information about the surgical area directly during an intervention.
The technology is intended to support surgeons in identifying tumour structures and tumour-positive lymph nodes more precisely and to provide enhanced 3D navigation within the operating field. By making relevant imaging information available where it is needed during surgery, the approach has the potential to enable more targeted and tissue-sparing procedures.
MiE’s expertise in medical imaging
For more than four decades, MiE Medical Imaging Electronics GmbH has been developing and manufacturing imaging systems and technologies for nuclear medicine.
Within the “Operating Room of the Future” project, MiE contributes this expertise to the development and technical implementation of the imaging components of the new surgical environment.
A central aspect is the three-dimensional representation of medical imaging information and its integration into the digital workflow of the operating room. Together with the other project partners, MiE is helping to create the technological basis for making complex medical information intuitively accessible to surgeons during an intervention.
The project therefore extends the role of medical imaging beyond conventional diagnostic applications: imaging data can become an active component of surgical navigation and decision support.
A new approach to image-guided surgery
The augmented reality subproject aims to provide surgeons with enhanced information about the surgical field through 3D navigation support.
Instead of relying exclusively on the visible surgical anatomy, additional information derived from medical imaging can be incorporated into the surgeon’s view. This may help to locate relevant anatomical or pathological structures more accurately and support more precise surgical planning and execution.
The development represents an important step towards a more closely connected environment in which imaging, data processing and surgical technology work together in real time.
Robotic assistance for safer and more efficient workflows
A second part of the “Operating Room of the Future” project focuses on improving robotic assistance in the operating theatre.
In today’s robot-assisted surgery, surgeons typically control the surgical instruments from a console, while surgical assistants continue to work directly at the operating table. The project investigates a new two-arm assistance robot designed to support these activities.
The objective is to further optimise workflows while also improving infection protection in the operating room. Together, the augmented reality and robotics developments are intended to contribute to surgical procedures that are more precise, efficient and gentle for patients.
Interdisciplinary collaboration in Schleswig-Holstein
The “Operating Room of the Future” is a joint project involving the Kurt Semm Center at University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH), several research groups from the Faculty of Engineering at Kiel University (CAU), Vater Solutions GmbH, MiE Medical Imaging Electronics GmbH and Kiel Scientific GmbH.
The combination of clinical expertise, engineering, information technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and medical imaging makes it possible to develop technologies across traditional disciplinary boundaries.
For MiE, this collaboration is also an opportunity to transfer decades of experience in nuclear medical imaging into new areas of image-guided medicine.
Investing in the future of surgery
The joint project was launched as a flagship initiative in Schleswig-Holstein and received €3.4 million in funding. The funding was provided through the European Union’s REACT-EU programme as part of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
The project demonstrates how technologies that have traditionally been developed in separate fields can increasingly converge: medical imaging provides detailed information about structures inside the body, digital technologies process and visualise this information, and modern surgical systems make it possible to translate it into increasingly precise interventions.
With its contribution to the “Operating Room of the Future”, MiE is helping to explore this next generation of image-guided, digitally assisted surgery.
