LONDON (TIP): In a first, doctors have used Google Glass to successfully restore the blood flow of a chronically blocked right coronary artery in a 49year-old patient. Virtual reality (VR) has potential to revolutionise some aspects of medicine and healthcare, researchers said.

Chronic total occlusion, a complete blockage of the coronary artery, sometimes 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) is increasingly used to provide doctors with guidance when performing PCI in lesions.

Cardiologists from the Institute of Cardiology in Poland were able to successfully restore blood flow in the occluded right coronary artery of a male patient assisted by CTA projections in a wearable VR device based on Google Glass, with an optical head-mounted display. The procedure was completed successfully with implantation of two drug-eluting stents.