VR technology helps remove rare liver tumor in China

Have you ever wondered how Virtual Reality can help us in real life?

The Sun Yat-sen Memorial hospital in Guangzhou has successfully removed a rare tumor of the liver with the help of VR technologies.

In this case, a seven-year-old patient underwent a hepatoblastoma, which is a rare childhood liver cancer. The growth weighed 1.4 kilograms, three times larger than the liver of a normal child.

As the tumor takes up almost the whole of the patient's entire thoracic and abdominal cavity, the medical team used the technique of computerized 3D reconstruction to decide the best surgical slice plane and operation pathway.

By transforming the 2D x-ray film into a 3D model, doctors were able to define the relation of blood vessels, biliary tract and tissues inside the liver, and so could accurately removed the tumor from the liver.

During the surgery, the chief surgeon was able to zoom in, zoom out, rotate and move the model using hand gestures for reference purpose.

Experts believe VR technology will be able to boost the success rate of operations in a less invasive way.

Media reports say, after the surgery, the patient, with a liver only half the size of normal size, is now recovering well.