Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
An Ontario teen is among the first patients in the country to have a rare bone cancer surgically removed by doctors who used a new Canadian-designed virtual reality system. The system allows them to "walk" within a patient's body as they plan out complex surgeries.
"Every time we go into the headset, we're literally inside the patient, looking directly at the tumour, and it's quite exciting," said Dr. Kawan Rakhra, a radiologist and part of the orthopedic surgical team at the Ottawa Hospital.
Patient Emeric Leblanc was 14 when pain in one of his legs led to a diagnosis of Ewing sarcoma. It's a rare cancer that had engulfed much of his left hip bone.
The Gatineau, Que., teen first had to endure 62 days of chemotherapy and 25 radiation treatments to shrink the tumour, before undergoing surgery to remove it by amputating part of the pelvis.
Dr. Joel Werier, who led the surgical team at the Ottawa Hospital Cancer Program, faced a daunting challenge: remove the 12-centimetre tumour, while leaving enough pelvic bone to support Emeric's hip joint. Otherwise, Emeric would lose his entire left leg.
"We wanted to understand where was the tumour in relation to his hip joint, and could we save the hip joint? Could we do that safely?" said Werier.
"I think it's a very powerful tool," he added. "Didn't I wish I had this 15 years ago...?"
Wearing head goggles and holding a hand device, just like gamers, he and Rakhra recreated the pre-surgical journey into Emeric's pelvic area for CTV News.
"I'm just going to show you right into the tumour," said Rakhra, as the two doctors stood side by side in a hospital office. They measured the tumour and moved all around it, using their hands to stretch the images as they checked out arteries and organs they needed to avoid injury during the long and complex surgery.
"This does tell me that we do have enough bone to work with. At the same time...doing a safe cancer operation," said Warier.
The morning of the surgery, doctors let Emeric and his mother, Helene Lachance, see inside his body.
"It was very cool with the headset, and you could move it around, check it from every angle, and you could see in red there was an important blood vessel and a bunch of details on it," said Emeric.
His mother said the images were both impressive and comforting.
"It made me feel really reassured that Emeric was supported by the best in the medical field ....and the best technology," she said.
The idea began in 2016, after a medical physicist at the Ottawa Hospital, Justin Sutherland, played a few VR games. While immersed in the world of car racing and imaginary battles, his thoughts turned to adapting headsets and images to the field of medicine.
From his work developing radiation plans for cancer patients, Sutherland knew that medical teams relied on Computed Tomography (CT) scans and magnetic resonance imaging scans (MRIs) to map out how they would remove tumours. But the scans are two-dimensional and involve hundreds of slices of the body. It takes time and much training to mentally translate and visualize.
The idea led to the creation of the Ottawa start-up Realize Medical, as Sutherland and colleagues applied for a patent through the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.
Researchers developed programs that take scans and develop 3D images of areas requested by the surgeons, with all the structures and tissue that can be included coloured, and programed in a way where they can be virtually extracted, so those using the programs for training can focus on the exact area of the operation.
And all images are moved by the doctors' hands.
"The whole thing is natural and you feel as if you're really interacting with this data in a way that's not possible in the real world," said Sutherland.
"It never gets old to have a doctor try on the headset see what's available and then have their eyes light up," said Sutherland, now the company CEO.
There are a growing number of firms worldwide vying for a spot in medical training using virtual reality, with increasing interest in immersive planning systems like Elucis.
The question now is does this advanced virtual preparation make a difference to how well patients do?
"Preliminary data suggests to us (surgeons are) feeling a lot more confident," said Rakhra."That's leading to shorter operating times, which in turn should lead to better outcomes for the patient," he said.
Studies continue in Canada for use in planning cancer surgeries, as well as for use in heart, lung and even transplant operations.
"I think we've looked at it critically from a data point of view, from 13 or 14 patients. I think that's where we are right now, and we have three or four scheduled on the docket to do in the next few months," said Warier.
In January 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration green-lit the Canadian system for use south of the border, where it is now being used in 18 hospitals, said Sutherland.
Remote consultations with doctors anywhere in the world are an added feature.
"We've connected as far as Australia, the U.K., Saudi Arabia... and put them in the same environment as if they're there, face-to-face interaction," according to Sutherland.
Emeric's surgery stands among the team’s successes. It took 14 long hours but his leg was spared, and after several months of physiotherapy, the teen is now healthy and back at school.
The only reminders are the hole where his left hip bone sat, and the fact that his left leg is now slightly shorter as a result. For that, he uses lifts in his shoes.
"I still do whatever I want. And I don't let that stop me." Emeric told CTV News.
And he says he's happy he aided Ottawa scientists testing out a new way of seeing patients, inside and out.
"I always wanted to help," he said.
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.