Heart surgery in 3D

To perform intricate heart operations in babies with congenital heart disease, or to conduct complex heart repairs in adults without opening the chest, surgeons need a fast real-time imaging system that allows them to see depth.

Now they might soon have just that, thanks to a new stereoscopic system developed by Dr Robert Howe of Harvard University.

Here's how the system works: first, volumetric data from specific areas of interest in the heart are streamed in real time from an ultrasound system to a graphics workstation, which renders left-eye and right-eye views by alternating the position and orientation of the image.

Then, the rendered volumes, immediately displayed on a conventional monitor, are synchronised with flickering shutter glasses worn by the surgeon, yielding stereo-rendered 3D ultrasound images.

The images are said to provide surgeons with significantly better spatial information and depth perception for making repairs inside the beating heart than conventional techniques.