Doctors use Google Glass to restore blood flow to a patient's blocked right coronary artery

In the first instance of its kind, doctors have used Google Glass to successfully restore the blood flow of a chronically blocked right coronary artery in a 49-year old patient.

Chronic total occlusion, a complete blockage of the coronary artery, at times referred to as the "final frontier in interventional cardiology", represents a major challenge for catheter-based percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

Coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA) doctors helps doctors with guidance when performing PCI in lesions.

Cardiologists from the Institute of Cardiology in Poland were successful in restoring blood flow in the blocked right coronary artery of a male patient assisted by CTA projections on a wearable VR device based on Google Glass, with an optical head-mounted display.

The procedure resulted in successful implantation of two drug-eluting stents. the research has been published in Canadian Journal of Cardiology.

The physician-operators could clearly visualise the distal coronary vessel in the display of 3D computed tomographic reconstructions in a mobile application equipped with a hands-free voice recognition system and a zoom function.

It helped verify of the direction of the guide wire advancement relative to the course of the blocked vessel segment during the procedure.

''This case demonstrates the novel application of wearable devices for display of data sets in the catheterisation lab that can be used for better planning and guidance of interventional procedures,'' said lead investigator Maksymilian P Opolski from the Institute of Cardiology, IANS reported.

''It also provides proof of concept that wearable devices can improve operator comfort and procedure efficiency in interventional cardiology,'' Opolski added.

Google Glass, comprises a wearable, hands-free computer incorporating an optical head-mounted display worn by interventional cardiologists in the catheterisation laboratory.

The optical head-mounted display captures and shows images and videos as it interacts with the surrounding environment.

The display is an instance the virtual reality concept in which the user is supplemented with additional information generated by the device.