How Virtual Reality is Changing Surgery in Japan – Holoeyes

Many VR startups are a solution is search of a problem, but Holoeyes is already in use at hospitals around Japan. Although the medical industry is one the most highly regulated, conservative and hard to disrupt, Holoeyes has made inroads by solving a very specific problem for surgeons.

Today we sit down with Naoji Taniguchi, CEO of Holoeyes, and talk about the steps his startup had to take to sell into the medical market in Japan and to win over traditionally conservative doctors. Holoeyes builds up virtual reality models of organs from CT scans, and lets doctors analyze and discuss these matters much more directly and clearly than they could before.

It’s a great interview and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Show Notes for Startups

How VR can actually save hospitals money and improve outcomes Why the world needs a GitHub of surgery What Japanese startups get out of accelerator programs Why the real value in surgical VR is not what you think How Holoeyes achieves medical quality in low-spec devices How Holoeyes convinced conservative doctors and hospitals to try a new technology Advice for startups trying to sell to doctors Why more and more medical professionals will be getting involved in startups in Japan

Links from the Founder

Everything you ever wanted to know about Holoeyes Follow Naoji on Medium Follow him on twitter @tani_yang Friend Naoji on Facebook See Holoeyes in action

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrYlsSldXSM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu9RU03PPho https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANN64JeUjog&t=2s

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Transcript from Japan Disrupting Japan, episode 82.

Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me.

The medical industry is one of the world’s most highly regulated and hard to disrupt. And for the most part, that’s a good thing. But there are a number of innovative start-ups that have ways of improving things. Not disruptive change, mind you, but simple, more cautious, incremental change that will make life better for everyone. Holoeyes is one of those questions. And today we sit down with Naoji Taniguchi and we talk about how their VR solution is winning over doctors all over Japan, and changing the way surgery is done.

Holoeyes builds up a virtual reality model of organs from CT scans, and let’s doctors analyze and discuss these matters much more directly and efficiently than they could before. We’ll get into the details during the interview. But one of the things that impressed me the most about Holoeyes, is that is is already in use today. So much VR tech and so many VR companies have an amazing wow factor, but only the promise of future applications.

But you know, Naoji tells that story much better than I can. So let’s hear from our sponsor and get right to the interview.

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[Interview]

Tim: So I’m sitting here with Naoji Taniguchi of Holoeyes.

Naoji: Yeah.

Tim: This is an application that uses AR and VR for medical training, and thanks for sitting down with me.

Naoji: Okay.

Tim: Can you tell me a bit more about the application and how it’s used?

Naoji: Holoeyes make customized model for each patient. For VR, our mixed reality, our product helps communication between doctor, surgery team members, or training senior doctors and new doctors.

Tim: So let’s just walk through from start to finish how it’s used. So how do you build up this VR model?

Naoji: Partially use Diacom Viewer. Diacom Viewer is viewer of CT scan image. Now we are trying to use deep learning to automate, create, make part of a model from CT scan image.

Tim: Okay, so it’s laterally taking a CT scan and building up the VR image kind of slice by slice?

Naoji: Yes, yes.

Tim: Alright, that makes sense. And then the doctors can use this to communicate and to show the model.

Naoji: Yes.

Tim: Now the demo I saw was basically viewing the model and using AR to zoom in and to rotate. What is the application for that? Would that be for example, teaching—

Naoji: What they call 3-D movement. I think 3-D movement is very important for surgery. Before our product, doctors have to write in tickets some procedure of surgery. So it is very complex. So using our product, doctors do surgical procedure with game controller and head-mount display this way. They record the whole procedure of surgery.

Tim: So for example, the lead surgeon could run the entire operation with the surgical team before the surgery, and say, ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ And then everyone will be able to see it. And then when it comes time for the surgery, everyone understands?

Naoji: Yeah, so it’s like private mode and car racing game.

Tim: Okay.

Naoji: Do you know?

Tim: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Naoji: It’s like that. And in using VR we can see the movement at any angle.

Tim: Okay, so it’s also used after the surgery to evaluate how it went—

Naoji: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim: —and if there were any problems? Okay.

Naoji: We archive VR model on our crowd server. So we will be GitHub of surgery.

Tim: Okay.

Naoji: So GitHub has open public repository. Also GitHub has private repository to read. So if they shall want their data to be public—

Tim: Well, that’s what I wasn’t asking. But there are very strong laws all over the world about sharing patient data?

Naoji: Yeah. So our patients, they’re objective is cure so data is not important for them. But for doctors, it’s a treasure.

Tim: Sure, yeah. It’s extremely important. So far have you found patient’s being very willing to share their data.

Naoji: Nowadays the data is thought about very personal, but we use polygon. Polygon data don’t have personal information. Name, or age, or the patient’s living address.

Tim: Okay, so if you reduce the model to all polygons, and take off all personal information, then it’s fine? Oh, okay. So what platform are you using for this? Both the hardware and the software side.

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Naoji: Well, hardware we are using HTC Vive using Windows PC.

Tim: Okay.

Naoji: And Microsoft Hololens using smart phone. Both device has good point and bad point. For HTC Vive, it’s a little bit expensive, but smartphone is very cheap and everyone have. But HTC Vive can display very detailed, how polygon model, and good personal tracking.

Tim: Right, right.

Naoji: But smartphone is very cheap. We use crowd server to store our data. The device download that data. Why is a high polygon called HTC Vive, and design a polygon model for a smart phone?

Tim: Medical imaging is one of the most demanding and challenging areas for image processing.

Naoji: Yeah.

Tim: The resolution has to be much, much higher than almost any other type of application. There’s very little tolerance for the artifacts of glossy compression. So is the resolution of your VR models, is it high enough for medical use?

Naoji: Some part is enough. For the liver we provide like a map. It’s not a photo. So we will use map to go 3-D.

Tim: Okay, so it’s really more of a reference, and it’s not a diagnostic tool so it doesn’t have to be that accurate.

Naoji: Yeah, yeah. So we will show thick veins. So if we provide all veins in liver, doctors will confuse.

Tim: Alright. Okay, okay. That makes sense. A little later I want to dive deeper into the application, but for now let me ask you a bit about you and your co-founder. So your background is in physics and aeronautical engineering.

Naoji: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah:

Tim: And your co-founder, Sugimoto-san is a surgeon?

Naoji: Yes.

Tim: How did you two come together on this project?

Naoji: I have a friend. He’s working as an editor. The publisher has 36 book on medical for families. The old data is digital. So he ordered me, can you create some digital service using this data. So I thought the data in the book is like databased. During the project, I researched a lot of medical information. And I found article of Sugimoto-san. He saying modern medical needs 8K video image, so at same time I was doing a lot of interactive project. So I thought, ‘I’m interested.’ And I thought we would get on well. I found his Twitter account.

Tim: Okay.

Naoji: And I messaged him. And after that, we talked together at Tokyo.

Tim: Oh, alright. Does he act more as an advisor, or is Sugimoto-san involved in the day-to-day operation of the company?

Naoji: Yeah, day-to-day he does operation. So he use our product at hospital and looking for doctors who will use our product.

Tim: So right now you’re still in the development phase. You haven’t started charging for—

Naoji: Yeah.

Tim: —the use of Holoeyes yet? Right? Can you tell me a bit about your users and your partners? Who’s using Holoeyes today?

Naoji: Our first customer is Doctor Sugimoto and second is Bokuto Hospital in Tokyo. Some will be Sano Hospital. He’s a dentist. It is very useful for implants to see the bones.

Tim: To have like a false tooth implanted.

Naoji: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim: Right. So is the main application now the planning of surgeries?

Naoji: Yeah. First is planning surgery, and next is training tool or education tool for young doctor.

Tim: So you were also apart of the Recruit Holding’s accelerator.

Naoji: Yes.

Tim: Was that valuable for you?

Naoji: Yes. For medical they don’t do nothing, because Recruit is not medical company.

Tim: Right.

Naoji: But our business is for medical, but our business model is for internet technology company. We are using crowd server, and we will stocl our patients’ data, we make value from the data. So it’s like—