As surgical instruments and devices become increasingly advanced, they generate a substantial amount of data within the operating room (OR). Effectively collecting, analyzing, and making this data readily accessible is crucial. Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a pivotal role in harnessing this data, offering data-driven insights to improve surgical procedures, enhance decision-making for surgeons, and ultimately improve patient outcomes.

To meet this challenge, the Digital Surgery Lab is dedicated to the development of AI-driven algorithms for processing and analyzing data in the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative phases. This cutting-edge research leverages various sources of data, including endoscopic videos and data from surgical robots, while also monitoring the activities of both human surgical teams and technological components within an experimental OR environment.

The Digital Surgery Lab operates at the intersection of basic research and clinical application, with its leaders, Professor Beat Müller and Dr. Joël Lavanchy, actively practicing visceral surgeons at the University Digestive Health Care Center, Clarunis in Basel. They collaborate within the research ecosystem of DBE to expedite the development and testing of innovative solutions for their clinical work. 

April 2024

• One article accepted in IJCARS
• The Digital Surgery Lab is now available via digitalsurgerylab.ch

March 2024

• On behalf of Swiss-MIS Joël Lavanchy organized the Tripartite Meeting in Minimally Invasive Surgery March 7/8, 2024 in Basel. Beat Müller gave a fantastic lecture on Robotic Esophagectomy

February 2024

• Jan Liechti joins the Digital Surgery Lab as Clinician Scientist. Welcome!
• Simon Pezold joins the Digital Surgery Lab as Data Scientist. Welcome!

January 2024

• Julia Ruppel joins the Digital Surgery Lab as Data Manager. Welcome!
• Joël Lavanchy receives a Young Investigator grant from the Novartis Foundation for medical-biological Research

December 2023

• Joël Lavanchy co-chairs the Surgical Data Science session of the Surgical AI Day at Orsi in Ghent, Belgium
• Stefanie Speidel, Professor for Translational Surgical Oncology at the National Tumor Center in Dresden visits the DBE and the Digital Surgery Lab
• Beat Müller gives an invited lecture on the Role of Virtual Reality and AI in Colorectal Surgery at the European Colorectal Congress in St. Gallen

November 2023

• The Digital Surgery Lab is featured in the Schweizerische Ärztezeitung

October 2023

• Joël Lavanchy gives an invited lecture on Surgical Skill Assessment at the Department of Visceral and Thoracic Surgery, Kantonsspital Winterthur
• Joël Lavanchy serves as a program chair for the clinical day (CLINICCAI) at the International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2023

September 2023

• Nicolas Padoy, Professor of Computer Science at University of Strasbourg and Scientific Director of IHU Strasbourg visits the Digital Surgery Lab 
• Beat Müller presents on Pancreatic Cancer and Papillary Carcinoma and Joël Lavanchy on Video-Based Assessment of Laparoscopic Gastric Bypass at the Annual Meeting of the SGG, SGVC and SASL in Interlaken
• The Department of Surgery at University Hospital Basel assigns the project "Data driven surgery" to the Digital Surgery Lab

August 2023

• Beat Müller presents on Robotic Surgical Oncology and Joël Lavanchy on Improving Surgical Skill Assessment Using Robotics at the Medical Robotic Week / CURAC in Basel

July 2023

• The Digital Surgery Lab at the Department of Biomedical Engineering is founded
• Joël Lavanchy recieves a PostDocMobility return grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation
• Joël Lavanchy presents on How to Start a Surgical Data Science Project at the Surgical Data Science Summer School in Strasbourg, France