Augmented Reality for Interventional Procedures

Augmented reality now allows us to see the real world superimposed with live data and 3D medical imagery needed to guide precision image-guided interventional therapy. Physicians performing advanced interventional procedures, in an ideal state, are able to keep their hands on the instruments and their eyes on the patient and to access contextually relevant digital information at any given point in time. Data should be displayed as a 3D hologram when required and in an ergonomically optimal size and position. Perhaps even more importantly, rather than having to shift focus away from the patient to press physical buttons to operate interventional equipment, an AR-powered interventional suite can allow control of the entire interventional system and environment with voice recognition, eye tracking, and advanced intuitive gestures. In this chapter, we will describe several examples of such augmented reality applications and hardware. The properties, benefits, and challenges of such applications will also be discussed.