Should the Royal Melbourne Hospital buy 19 of Optiscan’s InVivage devices After TGA approval in the future?

Equally, should the USA hospitals have one InVivage device in each operating theatre after FDA approval?

The Royal Melbourne Hospital, in Victoria, is one of Australia's leading public hospitals. It is a major teaching hospital for tertiary health care and engages in clinical research.

The Royal Melbourne Hospital has 16 operating theatres and 3 day procedure rooms. Over 32,300 surgical operations a year are conducted.

Clearly we all understand the importance of in vivo [in the living body] digital biopsies for cancer detection and treatment.

Significantly, there is another supernumerary use of InVivage in all surgical procedures not related to cancer. That is a proactive use of InVivage for cancer detection.

For example, trauma surgery.

In addition, to treating the patient for the primary issue, why can’t the surgeon be proactively aware of secondary issues like cancer? As a consequence of trauma, potentially cancerous tissue may be exposed. In this scenario the surgeon could in simplistic terms take a few images by way of a digital biopsy using Optiscan’s InVivage device. Not necessarily for immediate analysis [putting aside the use of Artificial Intelligence] but for a future review and a permanent three-dimensional image record. Clearly, this approach would not be relevant to all trauma surgery. First of all, the focus would be on saving the patient’s life. Moreover, the patient may not be in a high-risk group for cancer. In these cases, the use of InVivage would be unnecessary. However, in other surgical procedures it would be useful the have InVivage available as an option.

Out of the 32,300 operations in a year at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, how many diagnoses of cancer that would not in the normal course of events, be detected by the proactive use of InVivage?

Furthermore, we should not forget InVivage’s relevance to the Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne which provides general dental, specialist dental care and emergency dental care.

Proactive health results in earlier diagnosis of cancer that leads to a better health outcome for the patient and reduced future medical costs. The latter a benefit to our overwhelmed health system and consequent savings for Medicare and private health insurers.

In conclusion, every hospital operating room should be equipped with an Optiscan InVivage medical device.