VR is making inroads into the healthcare sector in number of ways – and not just to ease patient fears.

In April, at the Society of Interventional Radiology annual meeting, researchers unveiled an interactive virtual reality technology that helps radiologists better plan splenic artery aneurysm repair.


Dr. Zlatko Devcic, interventional radiology fellow at Stanford University Medicine, explained that treating this condition can be a challenge because of the intricate anatomy and differences in each case.

“If someone has a better idea of what the anatomy looks like, then they can go into the procedure picking the right equipment to accomplish whatever they need to do,” he told HCB News at the time.

The VR software uses pre-procedural CT scans to create 3-D images that the radiologist can virtually manipulate while wearing special glasses, giving them a better feel for the spatial relationships between aneurysms and the surrounding arteries.

A small study showed that the approach was as accurate as standard visualization software in the assessment of 17 splenic artery aneurysms in 14 patients, but 93 percent of radiologists who used VR reported higher confidence in their abilities.

“If they have a better idea of what they are doing, hopefully, the procedure will take less time,” said Devcic. “If there is less procedure time involved, then there will be less radiation involved as well to the patient and the operator.”

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