Augmented reality (AR)
technologies that blend computer-generated images and data from MRI and CT
scans with real-world views are making it possible for doctors to see under the
skin of their patients to visualize bones, muscles, and internal organs without
having to cut open a body. Experts say AR will transform medical care by
improving precision during operations, reducing medical errors, and giving
doctors and patients alike a better understanding of complex medical problems. It
could help doctors determine exactly where to make injections and incisions. In
medical emergencies, it could be used to display life-saving information for
AR-equipped paramedics and other first responders. ProjectDR is an AR system
that can map internal medical scans into three-dimensional images overlaid on a
patient’s body, either with a video projector or via AR smart glasses.
AR will eliminate the historic
disconnect between a doctor’s efforts to understand data from scans and other
diagnostic tests and those to care for flesh-and-blood patients. In a
cutting-edge use of AR in medicine, doctors at Imperial College and St. Mary’s
Hospital in London have been wearing Microsoft’s HoloLens AR glasses during
reconstructive surgery on patients who have suffered severe leg injuries in
traffic accidents. Doctors often repair severe leg injuries with flaps of
tissue taken from elsewhere on the body. Connecting it to blood vessels at the
site of the wound helps fresh oxygen-carrying blood reach the new tissue and
keep it alive. Surgeons have typically used a handheld scanner to locate the
major blood vessels near the wound. But the augmented reality system helped
surgeons find those blood vessels directly, by highlighting them in the 3D
virtual image displayed in an AR headset.
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