Inoperable Baby Receives Life-Saving Surgery at Nicklaus Children's Hospital

Virtual reality technology is finally becoming affordable, and even useful for clinical applications. Surgeons at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, Florida came across a complicated case. A baby was born with one lung and a poorly formed heart, a grave diagnosis. The doctors decided to go ahead with a corrective procedure that would save the child.

Because the patient has an unusual anatomy including the improper positioning of the heart, a serious challenge remained of understanding this particular patient’s unique morphology.

Finally, the doctors used a software to convert CT scan data into a 3D representation. The representation could be analyzed using a Google Cardboard viewer coupled with a standard smartphone.

The doctors studied the patient’s anatomy using Google Cardboard . The baby received a life saving heart surgery at the Hospital on December 10.

"We lived thinking that any time she went to sleep, she might not wake up again,” recalls Cassidy, mother of four. “And we did everything we could to make sure she never cried, because we were afraid the strain might be too much for her struggling heart.”

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Source-Medindia