Surgical Anatomy of the Lung, the newest app produced by the Carlos and Davis Center for Surgical Anatomy and Technique (CSAT) of the Emory University School of Medicine, is a comprehensive and multifunctional tool for preoperative planning, education, and physician-to-patient communication. The app is now available for free in Apple's iTunes store for iPad and iPhone.
While intended for diverse use by professionals, educators, and trainees alike, the app was originally created to facilitate communication between faculty surgeons of the Emory Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery and their lung cancer patients prior to surgical resection.
"Surgical Anatomy of the Lung allows the surgeon to educate and guide the patient through their operative journey using a simple interface," says Emory cardiothoracic surgeon Manu Sancheti, MD, a member of the team that developed the app. "It is also an excellent educational adjunct for residents, medical students, nurses, and all staff participating in thoracic surgery."
Surgical Anatomy of the Lung includes a lung capacity calculator that can assess patients' postoperative lung function; an interactive cancer staging calculator, which deploys detailed descriptions and illustrations to accurately categorize tumors and provide predictive analyses based on the TNM classifications system; and the Virtual Lung, a 3D anatomy viewer that allows the user to show and hide various anatomical structures and place tumors of various sizes in and around the lungs.
The app encompasses a malleable environment that features the lobes of the lung, trachea, bronchi, bronchioles, major arteries and veins, and anatomical illustrations that give the user the ability to do mark-ups, drawings, and annotations that can be saved, emailed, and printed.
"All of the app's features, particularly the Virtual Lung and the ability to draw on the models, gives surgeons an excellent method of explaining the location of tumors and proposed operative plans to patients during clinic consultations," says Dr. Sancheti.
The prototype version of Surgical Anatomy of the Lung received an award in the category of interactive media at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Association of Medical Illustrators, acknowledging the ease of use and eye-catching graphics that are hallmarks of CSAT's apps.
The production team for Surgical Anatomy of the Lung was Dr. Sancheti, medical director; Andy Matlock, MS, design, 3D modeling, illustration; Keith Delman, MD, course director; Stefan Tigges, MD, anatomist; and Daniel Lee, programming.
CSAT's central mission is to support and promote understanding and awareness of the critical role surgical anatomy plays in the operating room by generating tools, materials, and training processes that will assist medical students, residents, and physicians in assimilating this maxim, and serve as aids to their clinical endeavors.
