Google Glass helps cardiologists open blocked heart artery

In a world's first, a group of cardiologists has successfully used the eye-wearable device Google Glass to guide the opening up of a chronically blocked right coronary artery in the cardiac cath lab.

Cardiologists from the Institute of Cardiology, Warsaw, Poland's capital city, successfully restored blood flow in the occluded right coronary artery of a 49-year-old male patient assisted by Google Glass with an optical head-mounted display.

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

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

The procedure was completed successfully with implantation of two drug-eluting stents.

"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.

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

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

The optical head-mounted display can show and capture images and videos while interacting with the surrounding environment.

This display is an example of the concept of virtual reality in which the user is supplemented with additional information generated by the device.

"Mobile technology offers an incremental opportunity to expand the existing open platform for mobile applications, which overcome the economic and capacity limitations of advanced angiography systems with dedicated monitors for projection of Computed tomography angiography (CTA) data sets," Dr Opolski pointed out.

Furthermore, wearable devices might be potentially equipped with filter lenses that provide protection against X-radiation.

Several medical specialties are already using it to train physicians and assist diagnosis and it also has potential for treatment, said the report published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.