• consultazione
• 3D models
• modelli 3D
• voice commands
• comandi vocali
• hands-free

During surgery, the surgeon must keep his focus on the patient and not take his/her hands away from the operating area. Surgery is an examination for the surgeon: he/she must put into practice all the notions acquired during his/her studies and remember the patient's diagnostic examination (seen during preoperative planning) to know exactly where the lesions to be treated are. If he/she wants to reconsult the diagnostic tests during the surgery, he/she needs the assistance of the rest of the medical staff so as not to contaminate his/her hands if they touch the computer in the room. However, this implies that the surgeon must provide precise instructions to guide the consultation of the diagnostic examination, increasing the operating times.
In this thesis work, we propose the design of a hands-free device that allows the consultation of a patient-specific 3D model through voice recognition and recognition of the user's gestures, so as to be able to control digital information without contact and without compromising the sterility of the operation.
The integration of a haptic module into the device has been proposed as a future development to facilitate the interaction between the 3D model and the surgeon's hands, to provide him/her a better conception of depth so that the surgeon recognizes when his/her virtual hands actually touch the 3D model and can manipulate it accordingly.
To create a prototype, after analyzing all the requirements of our device and the possible risks associated with its use in the OR, the work proceeded towards the implementation of the software to allow the use of voice commands and the design of the device support (considering also the presence of the haptic module), including mechanical drawings made with a 3D CAD design software.
The prototype was tested twice during two operations: the first operation consisted of the laparoscopic removal of a tumor present in the right kidney of a 75- year-old man; the second operation consisted of a hysterectomy and search for lymph nodes with high metabolic activity (to be removed) related to an intrauterine neoplastic pathology of a 64-year-old woman.
By collecting the feedback from the two surgeons at the end of the operations, the device was of great help to the surgeon in being able to identify all the patient sites on which to intervene immediately thanks to the navigation of the patient-specific model.
After the tests, we conclude that the surgeon has acquired greater autonomy (not having to request assistance from the rest of the staff to consult the data) and the operating times have been reduced.