Project description:BackgroundVirtual reality (VR) technology has been implemented as a pre-procedural planning tool for cardiovascular interventions to enable detailed evaluation of patient anatomy from different vantage points. Here, we employed a VR platform to preoperatively plan for percutaneous valve-in-valve transcatheter mitral replacement (ViV-TMVR) in a prohibitive surgical candidate.Case summaryAn 85-year-old male with a history of two prior sternotomies for bioprosthetic aortic valve (AV) and mitral valve (MV) 31 mm Medtronic Mosaic bioprosthesis presented with severe mitral regurgitation from a degenerative bioprosthetic MV. The patient was deemed a prohibitive surgical candidate for a third sternotomy and instead was recommended a percutaneous transseptal ViV-TMVR. An electrocardiogram-gated chest computed tomography (CT) provided a neo-left-ventricular outflow tract (neo-LVOT) of 1.89 cm2. This CT was reconstructed to create a 360° VR (360VR) model. A 29 mm SAPIEN three bioprosthetic valve, selected based on the already implanted MV, was placed inside the bioprosthetic MV and analysed in VR at different angles to ensure it would not obstruct the LVOT. The neo-LVOT measured in VR was 3.02 cm2, which would allow for sufficient blood flow without significant obstruction from the new SAPIEN three bioprosthetic valve. The patient tolerated the procedure well.DiscussionThis case demonstrates the utility of VR as a pre-procedural planning tool for interventional cardiology procedures. Preoperative planning in VR alleviated concerns regarding obstruction of the neo-LVOT and helped confirm safe implantation by clearly showing the three-dimensional spatial relationship between the implants and surrounding patient anatomy.
Project description:Guided bronchoscopy offers a minimally invasive and safe method for accessing indeterminate pulmonary nodules. However, all current guided bronchoscopy systems rely on a preprocedural computed tomography (CT) scan to create a virtual map of the patient's airways. Changes in lung anatomy between the preprocedural CT scan and the bronchoscopy procedure can lead to a divergence between the expected and actual location of the target lesion. Termed "CT-to-body divergence", this effect reduces diagnostic yield, adds time to the procedure, and can be challenging for the operator. The objective of this paper is to describe the concept of CT-to-body divergence, its contributing factors, and methods and technologies that might minimize its deleterious effects on diagnostic yield.
Project description:BackgroundLearning with virtual patients is highly popular for fostering clinical reasoning in medical education. However, little learning with virtual patients is done collaboratively, despite the potential learning benefits of collaborative versus individual learning.ObjectiveThis paper describes the implementation of student collaboration in a virtual patient platform. Our aim was to allow pairs of students to communicate remotely with each other during virtual patient learning sessions. We hypothesized that we could provide a collaborative tool that did not impair the usability of the system compared to individual learning and that this would lead to better diagnostic accuracy for the pairs of students.MethodsImplementing the collaboration tool had five steps: (1) searching for a suitable software library, (2) implementing the application programming interface, (3) performing technical adaptations to ensure high-quality connections for the users, (4) designing and developing the user interface, and (5) testing the usability of the tool in 270 virtual patient sessions. We compared dyad to individual diagnostic accuracy and usability with the 10-item System Usability Scale.ResultsWe recruited 137 students who worked on 6 virtual patients. Out of 270 virtual patient sessions per group (45 dyads times 6 virtual patients, and 47 students working individually times 6 virtual patients minus 2 randomly selected deleted sessions) the students made successful diagnoses in 143/270 sessions (53%, SD 26%) when working alone and 192/270 sessions (71%, SD 20%) when collaborating (P=.04, η2=0.12). A usability questionnaire given to the students who used the collaboration tool showed a usability score of 82.16 (SD 1.31), representing a B+ grade.ConclusionsThe collaboration tool provides a generic approach for collaboration that can be used with most virtual patient systems. The collaboration tool helped students diagnose virtual patients and had good overall usability. More broadly, the collaboration tool will provide an array of new possibilities for researchers and medical educators alike to design courses for collaborative learning with virtual patients.
Project description:BackgroundVirtual reality (VR) interventions have demonstrated efficacy for more than a decade for mood and anxiety disorders and emerging evidence suggests they can reduce pain symptoms in both acute and chronic pain. More recently, these interventions have abounded within the commercial and academic sectors, immersing participants within a virtual environment to confer health benefits to users. VR immersion can facilitate the delivery of health interventions by isolating participants from distractors and stressors in a therapeutic environment. While recent studies of VR interventions have exploded, they are not uniform in approach or device type, limiting generalizability. Recent scoping reviews on VR and chronic pain have focused on specific diseases or limited inquiries to specific interventions or study types.ObjectiveWe conducted a scoping review to generate new knowledge about the sum total of VR studies on chronic pain with specific emphasis on the methods and results of each study, including (1) the type of interventions, (2) outcomes chosen, (3) samples studied, and (4) data generated.MethodsA scoping review was performed on the literature on VR and chronic pain to describe themes associated with the literature to date and identify important gaps and unanswered questions to guide future research. CINAHL [EBSCO] (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) and PubMed were queried for the terms "virtual reality" and "pain," providing studies of chronic pain adult participants using VR delivered through headset displays. We included English-language manuscripts that had at least one VR intervention arm with adults with chronic pain. For this analysis, we only included VR interventions that were immersive (ie, using headsets). Non-study reports, studies with no specific chronic pain component, those not involving adults, and those using VR as part of a comprehensive rehabilitation program were excluded. A descriptive analytical method was used to extract data, compare studies, and contextualize the presented outcomes. Articles were categorized into several themes including the type of intervention, outcomes chosen, participant characteristics, degree to which immersion was achieved, and adverse effect monitoring and reporting.ResultsA total of 36 articles were included in our analysis. We summarize the literature using 5 themes: (1) heterogeneity of chronic pain types, (2) highly variable intervention types, (3) highly variable secondary and exploratory outcomes, (4) immersion was highly variable between studies and not systemically explored in many articles, and (5) side effect monitoring was limited.ConclusionsThe literature on VR in chronic pain is highly variable and lacks theoretical rigor. While there is emerging evidence that supports VR use in a wide variety of health conditions including chronic pain, future research should focus on producing theoretically rigorous work that focuses on mechanisms and that systematically assesses side effects to generate robust generalizable knowledge.
Project description:Left main coronary artery stenting requires rigorous planning and optimal execution. This case series presents a new approach to left main stenting guided by preprocedural patient-specific computational simulations. Three patients with significant left main artery disease underwent simulation-guided intervention using a novel stent scaffold purpose-built for large coronary arteries. (Level of Difficulty: Advanced.).
Project description:50,000 cells were injected orthotopically into the inguinal fat pad of a Nod-Scid-Gamma (NSG) immuno-compromised mouse. Injected cells were 80% unlabelled 4T1 cells (parental population), and 20% ZsGreen-labelled 4T1-T cells (clone isolated in Wagenblast et Al, Nature, 2015). Tumour were allowed to develop for 20 days, and then collected during necropsy. Disaggegated cells were processed through the 10X genomics Single Cell 3' gene expression pipeline. This data is intended as an example dataset for a novel virtual reality viewer for single-cell data described in Bressan et Al, Nat. Cancer, 2021 (submitted)
Project description:This study was designed to compare VR stereoscopical three-dimensional (3D) imaging with two-dimensional computed tomography angiography (CTA) images for evaluating the abdominal vascular anatomy before autologous breast reconstruction.MethodsThis prospective case series feasibility study was conducted in two tertiary medical centers. Participants were women slated to undergo free transverse rectus abdominis muscle, unilateral or bilateral deep inferior epigastric perforator flap immediate breast reconstruction. Based on a routine CTA, a 3D VR model was generated. Before each procedure, the surgeons examined the CTA and then the VR model. Any new information provided by the VR imaging was submitted to a radiologist for confirmation before surgery. Following each procedure, the surgeons completed a questionnaire comparing the two methods.ResultsThirty women between 34 and 68 years of age were included in the study; except for one, all breast reconstructions were successful. The surgeons ranked VR higher than CTA in terms of better anatomical understanding and operative anatomical findings. In 72.4% of cases, VR models were rated having maximum similarity to reality, with no significant difference between the type of perforator anatomical course or complexity. In more than 70% of the cases, VR was considered to have contributed to determining the surgical approach. In four cases, VR imaging modified the surgical strategy, without any complications.ConclusionsVR imaging was well-accepted by the surgeons who commented on its importance and ease compared with the standard CTA presentation. Further studies are needed to determine whether VR should become an integral part of preoperative deep inferior epigastric perforator surgery planning.
Project description:Background. Immersive virtual reality (iVR) facilitates surgical decision-making by enabling surgeons to interact with complex anatomic structures in realistic 3-dimensional environments. With emerging interest in its applications, its effects on patients and providers should be clarified. This systematic review examines the current literature on iVR for patient-specific preoperative planning. Materials and Methods. A literature search was performed on five databases for publications from January 1, 2000 through March 21, 2021. Primary studies on the use of iVR simulators by surgeons at any level of training for patient-specific preoperative planning were eligible. Two reviewers independently screened titles, abstracts, and full texts, extracted data, and assessed quality using the Quality Assessment Tool for Studies with Diverse Designs (QATSDD). Results were qualitatively synthesized, and descriptive statistics were calculated. Results. The systematic search yielded 2,555 studies in total, with 24 full-texts subsequently included for qualitative synthesis, representing 264 medical personnel and 460 patients. Neurosurgery was the most frequently represented discipline (10/24; 42%). Preoperative iVR did not significantly improve patient-specific outcomes of operative time, blood loss, complications, and length of stay, but may decrease fluoroscopy time. In contrast, iVR improved surgeon-specific outcomes of surgical strategy, anatomy visualization, and confidence. Validity, reliability, and feasibility of patient-specific iVR models were assessed. The mean QATSDD score of included studies was 32.9%. Conclusions. Immersive VR improves surgeon experiences of preoperative planning, with minimal evidence for impact on short-term patient outcomes. Future work should focus on high-quality studies investigating long-term patient outcomes, and utility of preoperative iVR for trainees.
Project description:This study sought to evaluate the impact of virtual reality (VR) tools in procedural planning of transcatheter aortic valve replacement. A prospective study involving 11 patients referred for transcatheter aortic valve replacement was conducted. A multidetector computed tomography was used to acquire and segment the anatomy of the access route and landing zone. From the information obtained with the multidetector computed tomography in DICOM format, we built a virtual platform (VisuaMed, Techer Team, Valencia, Spain) that contains all the clinical information of the patients and a virtualized model of their anatomy. Wearing VR devices, the professional was able to 'walk inside' the anatomy in an interactive and immersive way. Decisions after the evaluation of routine clinical images were compared with those after experience with VR models and intraprocedural findings.