For the last 30 years, doctors have used echocardiograms to diagnose and treat heart conditions. Now, a new twist on the technology has them seeing the heart in 3-D.
Virtual reality. It lets us see the world like we know it. Now, the same technology is helping doctors see inside the heart. It's called I-Space.
"The I-Space room is made of projector screens that allows the images to float into space across people's eyes," computer scientist Anton Koning, of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, tells Ivanhoe.
Special glasses and a handheld joystick let doctors delve deep into the anatomy of the heart from different angles and actually see it in 3-D!
Cardiologist Annemien van den Bosch, also of Erasmus University Hospital, says, "The nicest thing is that we can really see now the heart as it is in your body."
Currently, doctors only see slices of heart with a standard echocardiogram. Compared to the 3-D image, van den Bosch says, "Now, you really see that this is the heart. This is what I want to know."
Here's how it works. Doctors send an ultrasound image to a technician, who turns it into a 3-D picture. The new image is projected on the screens, and infrared tracking reacts to movement.
Koning says, "We can surround people with the images, so they feel like they are standing in the middle instead of just looking at a screen."
The new technology could help doctors diagnose heart conditions and plan surgeries more precisely. Recently, 10 doctors tested the I-Space room. All the physicians were able to correctly diagnose a heart problem in less than 10 minutes.
"They were very enthusiastic because they said, 'Wow, now I know where I can make my incision,'" van den Bosch says.
This high-tech solution is only being studied right now, but could be in your doctor's office in the near future!
The I-Space room is only being studied in the Netherlands. Doctors hope to make a smaller version of the technology that could be available in the next five to 10 years. The room cost more than a half a million dollars to build.
You can go through the Dynamic 3D echocardiography in virtual reality" published in an online journal BioMed Central.
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