London: In a first, doctors have used the eye-wearable device Google Glass to successfully restore the blood flow of a chronically blocked right coronary artery in a 49-year-old patient. Virtual reality (VR) has potential to revolutionise some aspects of medicine and healthcare, researchers said.
A group of cardiologists has now successfully used a VR device to guide the opening up revascularisation of a chronically blocked right coronary artery. Chronic total occlusion, a complete blockage of the coronary artery, sometimes referred to as the “final frontier in interventional cardiology,” represents a major challenge for catheter-based percutaneous coronary intervention.
Coronary computed tomography angiography is increasingly used to provide physicians with guidance when performing PCI in lesions. The occluded coronary segment and the distal vessel territory are often more clearly depicted using coronary CTA than in invasive angiography. The procedure can be facilitated by projection of 3D CTA data on separate monitors in catheterisation laboratory, but the technique is constrained by economic factors.
