The Polhemus FastSCAN portable 3-D laser scanning system acquires data and digitally renders it in real-time.

As technology continues to evolve to meet today’s changing healthcare needs, companies serving unrelated markets are discovering some of their most innovative products can be applied to the medical industry.    

For instance, Polhemus of Colchester, Vt., is using its revolutionary scanning and motion-tracking technology to aid medical professionals in complex surgical procedures. “This is absolutely technology that no one else in the medical industry has,” Director of Medical Systems Business Development George Fraza says.   

Initially, only one group had been using the company’s tracking technology and that was the U.S. military. Founder Bill Polhemus was a well-known navigator within the Air Force and, after retiring from service, he established the company in 1970 to perform navigation studies for the military.    

Eventually, its product scope evolved into hardware and tracking devices for head tracking and movement tracking, found to be beneficial in combat aircraft. However, in the past 15 years, Polhemus has figured out a way to implement its tracking system technology for use in medical applications.   

“The idea behind tracking technology is to determine the position and orientation of a sensor relative to a source,” CEO Al Rodgers explains. “The source generates an electromagnetic field and the sensor senses that field. We can determine where the sensor is in space relative to the source and which way the sensor is looking.    

“If you take that sensor and attach it to a scalpel, you can help guide where a cut should be made,” Rodgers continues. “More recently, tracking was merged to a laser head, producing the ability to build a 3-D image in real-time.”

Introducing FastSCAN
This breakthrough has led to the creation of the Polhemus FastSCAN ­– a portable 3-D laser scanning system that instantly acquires data and digitally renders it in real-time. To operate the device, the end-user sweeps the handheld scanning wand over an object in a manner similar to spray painting, and an accurate 3-D image appears on the computer screen.    

In a matter of minutes, a scan file can be created, edited and used in a variety of 3-D modeling applications, such as:

• Orthotic and prosthetic surgery – Fast­SCAN can aid in the precise fitting of prosthetics and orthotics as opposed to plaster casting an amputated limb, Rogers explains. “The old technology was to slather the existing limb with plaster and send it out for fabrication,” he notes. “With the scanner, you eliminate that step in the process because you get an electronic file of the residual limb surface. When it comes back, it fits perfectly. Because of the precision of FastSCAN, this speeds and improves the process.”
• Cosmetic and reconstructive surgery – FastSCAN combined with Polhemus’ Delta software package provides an advanced comparative tool with the ability to perform volumetric analysis before and after an operation. 
• Burn masks and maxillofacial treatments –  “When a person’s face or arm has been burned very badly, physicians will construct a plastic mask that sits down over the patient’s face to help prevent swelling and the development of scar tissue,” Fraza explains. By scanning FastSCAN inches away from a burn victim’s face, physicians create a perfect 3-D replica to be used in the creation of a burn mask. This alleviates unnecessary pain of plaster being applied to tender skin. It also can be used to build cranial caps for children and is useful in precisely crafting facial features.
  

New Applications
Now, Polhemus wants to apply FastSCAN to another area of the healthcare world: precision localization. “We think the scanning system would benefit image-guided surgery for neurosurgical applications; specifically, we believe the scanner can be used in conjunction with an MRI image,” Rodgers says.   

“Currently, they use a cranial ring to drill holes and put that into your head, and then that is scanned,” he continues. “In surgery, they align the CT and the MRI so the surgeon will know where he or she is. By using FastSCAN, they can scan the patient’s face instead of sending them off to CT and use our image to help align the image to the MRI.   

“The surgeon has the image right there. A CT scan is a very expensive piece of equipment to serve that purpose. We are coming in with a device that is very cost effective, that allows for a high degree of accuracy and that doesn’t take up time on a $1 million CT scanner that could otherwise be used for an emergency situation.”

Industry Acclaim
Polhemus introduced the product at the 2008 Radiology Society of North America (RSNA) conference in Chicago last fall. Founded in 1915, the Radiological Society of North America is a professional membership society committed to excellence in patient care through education and research. According to the association, more than 40,000 medical imaging professionals are members of RSNA, including radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and allied scientists.

“RSNA hosts the world's largest annual radiology meeting, publishes two highly respected peer-reviewed journals, offers a number of opportunities to earn CME and provides research and education grants to young investigators,” RSNA says.

This was the ideal event to showcase FastSCAN’s numberous capabilities, according to Fraza. “Every single person that walked by, be it a doctor or a vendor, we scanned their face and put that on a memory stick for them to take home and view,” he recalls. “People were wowed that we could do it in real-time.”

Since that time, “We have experienced a tremendous increase in interest in that product and other products we showed to businesses within the medical community,” Fraza says, adding that the company is making steady progress regarding the product’s infiltration into the radiology world.    

“We realize it will take a little while, but we are trying to generate interest and bring it to the recognition of the radiology market.”

‘Significant’ Industry Shift
Right now, the healthcare industry is going through a “fairly significant shift,” Fraza acknowledges. “Over the last three or four years, reimbursement has faced a truly dramatic reduction.    

“This has an impact on buying cycles and on the capital available to buy. We are continuously under pressure to produce high-quality diagnostic tools at a lower and lower price,” Fraza continues. “We are going to help the medical community in providing a very cost-effective means of acquiring a piece of equipment that has a number of different uses within the hospital.   

“This mitigates risk and will give doctors information they might not have been able to get before, as well as the ability to archive this data in a PACS system,” he adds.

Consistent Growth
For that reason, Fraza says, Polhemus is experiencing consistent growth. “In a time when most companies are downsizing and people are losing their jobs, Polhemus is in growth mode,” he asserts. “We’ve added a few positions; we’re actually growing the company as opposed to cutting back. That makes a strong financial statement about the health of the company and the viewpoint of its executives.”   

“We have worldwide distribution,” Rodgers notes. “Recently, we restructured the company by identifying specific verticals or working markets. We have a medical vertical, a military vertical, a research and technology vertical and a full distribution network and I think it’s yielding some very good results. We plan to build the company on all four fronts to build business across the full breadth of our product line.”