Is a digital surgical twin feasible?
Résumé
The digital twin is based on the idea that a digital informational construction of a physical system could be created as an entity in its own right. In this sense, this digital information would be a “twin” of the information embedded in the physical system itself and would be linked to this physical system throughout the life cycle of the system. The industry is using digital twins, for example, in the aviation sector, Rolls-Royce is using “digital twins for its “IntelligentEngine” program, whose program creates digital twins for each engine. But is it possible to apply these principles of the digital twin to the field of surgery? Is the human body a physical system analogous to a car or an airplane? Based on the literature and on our field (BOPA innovation chair, augmented operating room, AP-HP, INRIA), we will address three questions. What are the expected functions of the digital twin in surgery? What are the technical obstacles encountered? What are the major legal and ethical difficulties? The digital twin of the patient raises epistemological and practical problems, which is why we will also briefly look at the modeling and simulation process at the heart of this enterprise, as well as the consequences – for both the patient and the surgeon – of the intervention of the digital twin in decision-making.