Telemedical technologies in urological cancer care: past, present and future applications

Abstract

Since the initial development of telegraphy by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1837 and the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1875, doctors have been able to convey medical information across great distances. The exchange and sharing of medical information has evolved and adapted to suit the vast array of today's medicine. Early adopters of telemedicine within clinical practice have gained significant health economic benefits. The arrival of wireless connections has further enhanced the possibilities for all clinical work with focus on diagnosis, treatment and management of urological cancers, as highlighted in this article.

Coaxial projective imaging system for surgical navigation and telementoring

“…The network transmission latency in telemedicine can be further reduced by using a satellite, wired, or 5G network. [32][33][34][35] For clinical deployment of telementoring, a secure protocol for wireless communication and a specially designed software package are required. Second, to facilitate dissemination of the proposed telementoring system in a clinical setting, many operating parameters, such as the working distance between the projector and the field of surgery, the FOV, and the projector intensity, need to be optimized.…”

Telementoring in education of laparoscopic surgeons: An emerging technology

“…In 1962, DeBakey pioneered the field of telemedicine with the first video conferencing (VC) demonstration of open-heart surgery (Houston, Texas, United States) transmitted overseas via satellite, allowing real time viewing of an aortic valve replacement by medical staff in Geneva (Switzerland) [8] . Advances in both communication and computing technologies have allowed the development of a low cost and reliable solution for conveying telemedicine over great distances [2,9,10] .…”

“…The head of the robot is equipped with two advanced digital cameras, audio microphone and sophisticated engineering allows a real-time, two-way audio-video link. In addition the robot is highly maneuverable and allow a wide range of motions, e.g., panning and tilting [10] . Sereno et al [14] Described a successful experiment using the previous version of the remote presence robot the RP-6 (predecessor to the RP-7).…”

Educational value of surgical telementoring

“…Originally, there were only a few interested contributors to surgical telementoring, and the technique and hardware were not available. Advances in telecommunication technology made possible the development of low‐cost and reliable solutions for distant telementoring 1,2 . Emerging challenges, including the expanding world population and the time and resources needed for educating the surgical workforce, 3 have foreseen surgical telementoring as a possible solution to enhance and improve surgical education.…”