Online orthopaedic surgical anatomical study using the visible human server

Abstract

Practicing orthopaedic surgeons may face day to day challenge in planning certain operations that require a special study of the anatomical part on which a complicated or rare surgical procedure is required. The standard options to obtain such special surgical anatomical data has been traditionally the reference of anatomical text books, special surgical exposure literature and books, or a special arrangement to visit the morgue and perform a post-mortem hands-on anatomical research. The new era of electronic data manipulation used over broadband internet connection, human volunteers who were executed for murder and accepted to give their body for the sake of science, and ingenious software created by dedicated scientists to build an engine for controlled real-time rendering of 2D, 3D, slices, surfaces, and animations of the human body opens a novel methodology to supplement the previously mentioned options. This work aims at exploring. The Visible Human Slice Server (http://www.visiblehuman.epfl.ch) as a tool for orthopaedic surgeons that they may use whenever the need for real-time special anatomical-surgical study is required, as well as for education and training of surgical anatomy.