Named AMIGO - an acronym for advanced multimodality image-guidance operating - the facility is also a research station, where the hospital and the National Institutes of Health, which contributed millions to fund its construction, will investigate what systems work best with different surgeries. The goals: to transform surgical techniques, improve patient care, and reduce the costs of expensive operating-room procedures.
The NIH provided $5 million for building AMIGO and several million dollars more for planning, while Brigham and industrial partners invested about $15 million in the suite.
The concept is deceptively simple: Combine the most advanced imaging systems in one suite, rather than scattered around the hospital. Each imaging technology has different capabilities. Doctors performing procedures can watch real-time images of the body and help determine which technology works best for, say, an operation for a brain tumor, or the treatment of cardiovascular problems.
Such image-guided surgeries are common; magnetic resonance imaging devices, for instance, have long been used by doctors to help view internal areas of the body while performing complicated surgeries. But never before have all the most advanced imaging devices been available in one operating room - or in the case of Brigham and Women’s, within a custom-built, 5,700-square-foot suite with unfolding walls.
It has it all: an MRI device that can be rolled into the operating room via a ceiling-mounted rail system; a positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET/CT) machine to reveal biochemical or metabolic activity; an angiography X-ray machine to view arteries and veins; an X-ray fluoroscopy machine that uses dyes to show blockages; and an ultrasound system for tumor identification and targeting.
All the devices are integrated through an electronic system made by Winnipeg-based IMRIS Inc., which pulls together many of the imaging technologies for viewing within the central operating room.
