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SPHERA

Spatial Pathology for Head and Neck Realignment Assistance

Real-time 3D specimen-to-bed correlation for oncologic surgery.

Software that reconstructs the resected specimen and the patient bed in 3D, aligns them and helps the surgery and pathology team locate margins precisely in head and neck cancer.

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What SPHERA is

SPHERA is 3D software that assists the intraoperative assessment of margins in head and neck oncologic surgery. It reconstructs in three dimensions the surgical specimen (the tissue resected with the tumor) and the bed (the cavity left in the patient), overlays them and aligns them so that surgeon and pathologist work on the same model.

It is developed by Altitud 100K together with Fundación Arturo López Pérez (FALP), a leading cancer center, based on real cases and the real surgical workflow.

SPHERA is a support tool for visualization and documentation. It is not a diagnostic device and it does not replace the clinical judgment of the medical team.

Altitud 100K Fundación Arturo López Pérez (FALP)

An alliance between engineering and oncology

SPHERA is developed by Altitud 100K —an applied-science company that turns technical knowledge into solutions— together with Fundación Arturo López Pérez (FALP), a leading cancer center in Chile.

FALP brings the clinical context, the real cases and the surgical and pathology perspective; Altitud 100K brings the 3D engineering and the software. Together we take SPHERA from the lab to the operating room.

The problem

When pathology reports that a margin is involved or at risk, the team has to locate that exact point again in the patient bed. Today that relies on verbal communication, photographs, ink and 2D diagrams: the specimen is in the frozen-section room and the bed in the operating room, with no shared 3D view.

The literature quantifies the cost of that imprecision: in a prospective multi-institutional study, about half of the margin relocations were more than 1 cm away from the actual site (mean error ~10 mm). And head and neck cancer accounts for on the order of 950,000 new cases per year worldwide.

Sources: Miller et al., Head & Neck (2024); IARC / GLOBOCAN (2022).

The 3D intraoperative protocol workflow

SPHERA 3D intraoperative protocol workflow: equipment preparation, scanning of the surgical field and the specimen, quality control, standardized export, loading into SPHERA and co-registration between the operating room, pathology and the platform.
  1. 01
    Alignment

    Specimen ↔ bed co-registration

    Five alignment modes: manual by landmarks, automatic by geometry, gizmo, free mouse and an AI-assisted mode in development.

  2. 02
    Annotation

    Color-coded margins

    Mark points or paint areas at true size in millimeters, with a color code for positive, at risk or negative.

  3. 03
    Visualization

    Dual view

    Specimen and bed side by side, with overlay and transparency to see margins in depth.

  4. 04
    Collaboration

    Shared session

    Operating room and frozen-section room work on the same model in real time over the local network.

  5. 05
    Documentation

    CAP-style report

    Exports a structured PDF with a margin table, annotated snapshots and case measurements.

  6. 06
    Privacy

    100% local

    Runs without the cloud: data never leaves the premises. Includes a local AI assistant to support usage.

From tissue to 3D model: the scanning protocol

A standardized protocol to capture the specimen and the bed at clinical quality: sample preparation, 3D scanning face by face, scanning of the surgical bed and quality control before exporting to SPHERA.

Specimen and bed scanning protocol: specimen preparation, 3D scanning of the specimen, scanning of the surgical bed and quality control with export to SPHERA.

Team

A team that spans engineering, software and applied science, alongside FALP.

Technical direction

Manuel Céspedes Araya

Author and builder of SPHERA. Project engineer and MBA. Leads the product architecture and the clinical-technical link with FALP.

Meet the team → Systems architecture

Valeria Alarcón Leiva

Electronic engineer. Systems architecture, with experience in mission-critical engineering and satellite components.

Meet the team → General management

Sofía Galaz Meléndez

Engineering physics. General management, project coordination and development of the institutional adoption model.

Meet the team →

Let's take SPHERA from pilot to production

We are looking for clinical centers, research partners and investment to scale the validation of SPHERA and put it at the service of more oncologic surgery teams.

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