The Heart and Diabetes Center NRW in Bad Oeynhausen is the first clinic in Europe to introduce a three-dimensional real-time hologram in the operating room. The holographic medical technology HOLOSCOPE is used in the cardiac catheter laboratory, the HDZ NRW announced this week.
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This hologram technology gives virtual surgery an additional, interactive dimension in real time, but still needs to be tested. During the operation, the doctor can view his patient's beating heart as a true-to-life image floating above the operating table, according to a press release. The heart hologram can be rotated in space and parts of it can be viewed in more detail using a zoom function. This technology eliminates the need to wear a headset.
The projection unit of the “Holoscope” is located at the end of a device arm under which the doctor positions himself. The hologram is then projected at arm's length in his line of sight and responds to fingertip interaction. The doctor can now look at the heart, its structural condition and possible special features from all sides during the operation. This multidimensional view of the operating field is intended to help avoid perspective errors and improve catheter procedures.
3D technology is intended to make anatomy tangible
Previously, only image reconstructions of the heart were displayed on a monitor during the operation. The new hologram system “Holoscope” comes from the Israeli company RealView Imaging. The holograms are generated using ultrasound data that are recorded during the procedure via swallowing echo (transesophageal echocardiography) through the esophagus of the heart valves and atria. This means that even the smallest blood clots and possible deposits can be precisely visualized and localized.
The head of the Clinic for General and Interventional Cardiology, Professor Volker Rudolph, says that at the beginning they couldn't really imagine what the advantages of the new technology would be, but “in the hologram it's actually as if you were in the “Look into the patient's chest and can naturally control these catheters there.”
Cardiovascular diseases are the most common cause of death
At the HDZ NRW Heart Valve Center, more than 2,100 procedures are carried out every year to treat structural heart diseases in which the function of the heart was impaired as a result of valve damage. In addition, there are almost 100 procedures for congenital heart valve diseases at the Center for Congenital Heart Defects.
Heart valve disease occurs when one or more heart valves are leaky, calcified or narrowed. This can be congenital or develop over the course of life. In Germany, heart valve diseases occur primarily in old age due to wear and tear. The heart can often compensate for narrowed or leaky valves for years or decades without major problems.
(mack)