Integration of production-university-research based on artificial intelligence for technological innovation and transformation in gastrointestinal surgery

Abstract

Medical artificial intelligence is a deeply integrated field of production-university-research. The collaborative innovation system of "industry, education and research" has broken down the barriers between various disciplines and has shown great impetus in scientific and technological innovation and achievement transformation. The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University where the authors work, relying on Shandong Key Laboratory of Digital Medicine and Computer-Assisted Surgery and Institute of Digital Medicine and Computer-Assisted Surgery of Qingdao University, has jointly established a close "industry-university-research" cooperation mechanism with the State Key Laboratory of Virtual Reality Technology and Systems of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Qingdao Hisense Medical Equipment Co., Ltd., which lasted for 10 years and carried out a series of useful explorations in scientific and technological innovation and achievement transformation in the field of gastrointestinal surgery of artificial intelligence with fruitful results. It mainly comprises of the following: (1) The research and development (R&D) of Hisense computer-assisted surgery (CAS) system has important clinical significance for laparoscopic gastrointestinal surgery guided by surrounding blood vessels that grasps globally the movement and variation of blood vessels in order to accurately select surgical strategies. (2) R&D of an automatic identification system for gastrointestinal diseases (namely image-assisted diagnosis system of artificial intelligence) initially applies deep neural network of artificial intelligence to the identification of lymph node metastases in rectal cancer, which has achieved accurate clinical diagnosis. (3) The virtual endoscopy platform for the gastrointestinal tract developed can successfully provide a new virtual endoscopy view of the intestinal wall eversion and realize the one-way navigation of the intestinal wall. (4) A localized platform of laparoscopic surgery simulation training is established with completely independent intellectual property rights. We realize that clinical requirement is the source of research and development, clinical practice is the source of innovation, and clinicians are practitioners of transformation of achievements. The establishment of artificial intelligence models often requires the support of massive and high-quality clinical data. Therefore, the effectiveness of its promotion and application can only be ensured by adopting a multi-center research approach. In the whole process of scientific and technological innovation and achievement transformation, the issues of medical ethics and intellectual property rights cannot be ignored.