The Clínica Universidad de Navarra has designed and installed surgical imaging equipment, the only one of its type in Europe. The hospital has equipped three new operating rooms with high-field magnetic resonance imaging (3 Tesla) and two cutting edge robotic hemodynamic and arteriographic systems (Artis Zeego), capable of producing intravascular imaging or offering 3D tomography image reconstruction. All the equipment has been developed and implemented by Siemens.

The surgical equipment with state-of-the-art imaging diagnostics technology at the university hospital offers the maximum intraoperative precision by "in situ" determination (during the surgical intervention itself) of the result of the procedure, which offers the largest degree of safety for the patient. "They are the best instruments and systems for carrying out quality control in surgery at the very moment in which the surgery is being performed. They let us know if the surgical intervention has been as precise and effective as it should be", stated Dr. Ricardo Díez Valle, specialist in Neurosurgery and coordinator of the Area of Brain tumors in the Clínica Universidad de Navarra.

Required investment efforts

"The efforts made to invest in new technology are not just a whim in a hospital setting", emphasized the general director of the Clínica Universidad, José Andrés Gómez Cantero. The lives of patients as the center of all health activity "requires taking on the responsibility of assuring maximum quality and consequently, the safety of all treatments offered by a hospital, using the best resources available", pointed out the general director. He also emphasized the need to "update medical equipment that can offer patients treatments and diagnostic procedures of excellence".

The singularity and uniqueness of the Clinic as a nonprofit university hospital "allows us to reinvest economic surplus so as to permanently update its activity", stated Gómez Cantero.  This is the case of the new Area of Intervention, proposed years ago and which has now finally materialized. This cutting-edge technology, together with the avant-garde professionalism of the medical staff of the Clínica Universidad, "allows a maximum yield of resources for offering the best care to patients".

Without a doubt, the technology available to all the professionals and patients of the Clínica Universidad is a clear example showing where medical imaging is now headed. "In Siemens we work to maximize the enormous potential of these techniques and we are committed to taking them even further, beyond their traditional scope –up to now Radiology Services-. Instruments such as Magnetic Resonance equipment offer added value such as in the surgical setting, permitting the development of more precise surgical interventions and reducing possible complications and even the number of re-interventions", pointed out Alberto Martínez, director de Diagnostic Imaging and Advanced Therapies at Siemens Healthcare.

Design of the new installations

One of the three new operating rooms is located directly in front of the recently opened room with the newly inaugurated 3 Tesla magnetic resonance equipment (MR), substituting the initial equipment with the same potency used in the hospital since 2006. The 3-Tesla magnetic resonance scanner has the largest potency currently being used for imaging studies on the human organism.

The new resonance equipment is located in the new surgical area, giving direct and immediate access of the patient being operated on to the MRI table. Patient transfer is principally used in interventions on brain tumors so as to determine the precision of tumor removal during surgery.

Next to the room with the MRI equipment are two more hybrid operating rooms. This equipment is the most avant-garde for performing angiographies (diagnostic imaging study showing the interior of the blood vessels) based on robotic technology. It has a flat panel detector and an X-ray tube incorporated into a portable C-arm, installed on a 6-axel robot which allows reaching all positions so as to achieve the best image of each patient and procedure.

New Intervention Area in numbers

Surface: The 3 new operating rooms and the 3 Tesla Magnetic Resonance room, together with the other new rooms occupy a total area of 464 m2.

Medical team: 7 surgeon specialists and 12 specialized nursing professionals. Depending on the surgery, work can be carried out in the hybrid rooms by one specialist alone or by various specialists simultaneously.

Principal benefited specialists: Neurosurgery for determination with RM 3 Tesla and Hemodynamics, Vascular Radiology, Vascular Surgery and Cardiac Surgery in the hybrid rooms.

No. of MRs in the Clínica Universidad: 3: one 3-Tesla and two which are 1.5-Tesla.

Location: The new surgical complex is located next to the other operating rooms of the hospital; with the new installations, the number of operating rooms has risen from 15 to 18.

Project and construction works: The project for the new operating rooms began in 2007. It was in 2015 when the construction work began and was finished within a year's time.

Investment: The investment in the new surgical area had a cost of 3 million euros.