Google Glass, an augmented reality device, has been used by cardiologists at Poland’s Institute of Cardiology to unblock the coronary artery of a 49 year old male. Google Glass was used to create 3D reconstructions of the artery and these were loaded onto the device in the form of a custom application which allowed doctors and surgeons to better guide a catheter.
The process is known as catheter-based percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and employs a catheter to feed a balloon or stent through the blood vessel to treat a clogged artery. One of the difficulties faced by doctors during the procedure is insufficient imaging of the artery to be traversed.
Computed tomography angiography (CTA), an imaging technique that combines a CT scan with angiography, has helped drastically improve the quality of imaging available to doctors for PCI.
Traditionally, the results of the CTA data would be shown to doctors on monitors.
However cardiologists at Poland's Institute of Cardiology have discovered that displaying the images directly into the doctor’s or surgeon’s field of vision with the Google Glass headset helps them better visualise the artery and hence better guide the catheter.
Maksymilian Opolski said: "Mobile technology is easily accessible and offers an incremental opportunity to expand the existing open platform for mobile applications, which might in turn overcome the economic and capacity limitations of advanced angiography systems with dedicated monitors for projection of CTA data sets."
Opolski believes that filter lenses can be fitted onto augmented reality devices to even further improve their performance. The procedure using Google Glass was successful and implanted two drug-eluting stents in the patient.
Findings and research from the operations have been published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.