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Annual Report 2021

Division of Surgical Technology

Masaaki Ito, Takahiro Kinoshita, Nobuyoshi Takeshita

Introduction

 The main purpose of the Division of Surgical Technology is to develop surgical devices that are truly necessary, to deliver them to the clinical fields, and to prove their safety and efficacy through clinical trials.

The Team and What We Do

 By cooperation with the NEXT (Center of New Surgical and Endoscopic Development for Exploratory Technology), we started promoting surgical device development consisting of clinical need selection, prototype design, POC (Proof of Concept) establishment, validation, and clinical trials. In addition, we will create an innovative medical development roadmap by establishing a hub for surgical device development in National Cancer Center Hospital, East (NCCE) and building up a clinical supportive team for early-phase surgical device development.

Research activities

1.  Cooperation with the NEXT

 We have strengthened the system for surgical device development with support from coordinators for surgical innovation, intellectual property experts and regulatory experts in cooperation with the NEXT. While focusing on the development of medical devices through joint research and development with academia, we have advanced the development of medical devices and the establishment of a clinical trial implementation system in collaboration with the NEXT.

2.  Innovative surgical robotic system developed by NCC-certified venture company A-Traction

 In collaboration with NCC-certified venture company Asahi Surgical Robotics Co., Ltd, (formerly A-Traction, established in 2015 and acquired by Asahi Intecc Co., Ltd.), we have developed an innovative surgical robotic system. The system can support laparoscopic surgery as an assistant in addition to a surgeon. After the prototyping, we have advanced to regulatory consultations with PMDA and verification to get license approval for manufacturing and distribution.

3.  Platform development a system for clinical trial operations

 As a specific clinical study on the surgical application of oxygen saturation imaging developed at our hospital, we have carried out a "pilot study on intestinal blood flow evaluation using oxygen saturation imaging".

4.  Activities to match needs and seeds

 To create opportunities for medical device development by companies in Chiba Prefecture and Tokyo, we have organized the event "Medical Needs and Engineering Seeds Matching Meeting in Oncology Fields" with the National Cancer Center Hospital and the Cancer Institute Hospital in JFCR (Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research) in cooperation with Chiba Prefecture, Tokyo and Tokyo Medical-Engineering Collaboration Hub.

Education

 We held regular in-house seminars to teach surgical device innovation for the development of human resources.

Future Prospects

 We aim to establish a clinical support team for early-phase surgical device innovation and to make a roadmap for surgical device innovation.

List of papers published in 2021

Journal

1. Kitaguchi D, Takeshita N, Hasegawa H, Ito M. Artificial intelligence-based computer vision in surgery: Recent advances and future perspectives. Annals of gastroenterological surgery, 6:29-36, 2022

2. Mori T, Ikeda K, Takeshita N, Teramura K, Ito M. Validation of a novel virtual reality simulation system with the focus on training for surgical dissection during laparoscopic sigmoid colectomy. BMC surgery, 22:12, 2022

3. Kitaguchi D, Takeshita N, Matsuzaki H, Hasegawa H, Igaki T, Oda T, Ito M. Deep learning-based automatic surgical step recognition in intraoperative videos for transanal total mesorectal excision. Surgical endoscopy, 36:1143-1151, 2022

4. Kitaguchi D, Takeshita N, Matsuzaki H, Igaki T, Hasegawa H, Ito M. Development and Validation of a 3-Dimensional Convolutional Neural Network for Automatic Surgical Skill Assessment Based on Spatiotemporal Video Analysis. JAMA network open, 4:e2120786, 2021

5. Kitaguchi D, Takeshita N, Matsuzaki H, Hasegawa H, Honda R, Teramura K, Oda T, Ito M. Computer-assisted real-time automatic prostate segmentation during TaTME: a single-center feasibility study. Surgical endoscopy, 35:2493-2499, 2021