Making surgery easier with virtual reality

Neurosurgeons at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania are using a virtual-reality machine to take 3-D tours of patients' brains, allowing doctors to locate trouble spots like tumors.

Doctors will use the machine, called a dextroscope, to go through techniques to be used before surgery.

"It's a very unique component of what we do," said Sean Grady, the chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at the School of Medicine, adding that he was impressed by the power of the device.

Prior to operating, doctors can use the dexstroscope to view an image of the brain through special 3-D goggles that can be easily manipulated, in a manner similar to the real surgical procedure.

"The real key is that we can rotate these images, say 180 degrees, in the exact way I would get the head positioned in surgery," Grady said.

The dextroscope also allows surgeons to perform "virtual drilling" on the rotated image, giving surgeons an indication of how far they will have to drill.

"You can measure the distance to go through brain to see whether you're drilling through too much brain," Grady said. "If you don't like it, you can change your approach."

The image created also contains all of the components of a brain -- such as blood vessels and excess skull -- that surgeons try to avoid while operating.

Hospital technician Joe Shea said that surgeons are aided by color-coded markers on the image that indicate tumors and other critical areas.

"We use those those markers as reference frames, basically, in the operating room," Shea said.

The dextroscope was developed by Volume Interactions, which is owned by the Italian healthcare company Bracco Diagnostics Inc.

Daniela Carriero, a spokeswoman for Bracco, wasn't sure about the number of dextroscopes made over the past year, but said that the company is "continuing to service health centers around the globe."

According to Shea, only three known dextroscopes are in use, including one in Germany and one at Johns Hopkins University, where the tool has been used in the separation of conjoined twins.

"This is a fairly new tool, and we are one of the first to have it," Grady said. "We act as a referral center for the region. ... We can advise other hospitals about this tool for more complicated procedures."

But while the machine is still in its development stages, Grady believes that it will provide immediate benefit for patients undergoing longer operations.

"From a patient's perspective, this [improves] safety and efficiency," Grady said. "The more efficient we are in the operating room, the less time [patients] are under anesthesia."

Grady also said that the dextroscope can be used by students in medical residency, before they take part in their first operation.

Using this tool early in a doctor's career could increase the use of surgical simulators in the near future, according to Grady.

"Ten years ago I said, 'Soon we'll be looking at holograms in'" the hospital, he said. "This is almost there."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.