A Virtual Reality Environment to Visualize Three-Dimensional Patient-Specific Models by a Mobile Head-Mounted Display

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Surgical Planning
• Virtual Reality Technology

Background:

• Virtual reality environments (VREs) are increasingly utilized in medicine due to affordable head-mounted displays (HMDs).
• VREs offer potential for enhanced teaching and clinical applications in healthcare.
• This study focused on developing an interactive VRE for visualizing patient-specific organs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an interactive, user-friendly VRE for tridimensional (3D) visualization of patient-specific organs.
• To establish a workflow for transferring 3D models from imaging datasets into an immersive VRE.
• To evaluate the VRE's utility in anatomy comprehension, surgical procedure explanation, and preoperative planning.

Main Methods:

• The VRE was constructed using open-source software and a mobile HMD (Samsung Gear VR).
• Thirty-three volunteers (morphologists, trainee surgeons, expert surgeons) evaluated the VRE.
• A 6-item Likert scale questionnaire assessed ease of use, anatomy comprehension, and clinical applications, with results analyzed using ANOVA.

Main Results:

• The VRE enabled visualization of a 3D patient-specific abdominal scene from medical imaging within one hour.
• All evaluated parameters received positive feedback across all volunteer groups.
• A statistically significant difference was observed only in anatomy comprehension among the three groups.

Conclusions:

• The developed VRE system, utilizing open-source software and mobile hardware, is a valid and well-received tool.
• This approach offers a promising new method for medical teaching and preoperative planning.
• The system facilitates the visualization of 3D patient-specific models for enhanced medical understanding.