Nvidia: How EchoPixel Gives Surgeons an Interactive, 3D View Inside the Human Body

OREANDA-NEWS. May 27, 2015. Virtual reality technology has made a big splash in gaming. But VR is serious business, as well. As serious as brain surgery.

Anytime you open up the body, there are risks involved. So, wouldn’t it be great to give surgeons a clear look inside a patient’s torso or skull before they make the first incision?

With EchoPixel imaging technology, that vision is becoming reality.

EchoPixel’s True 3D Viewer shows a virtual representation of a patient’s body. And it does so in open, immersive 3D.

Using stereo glasses, a stylus and a zSpace monitor, physicians can see and manipulate imagery obtained from CT, MR or ultrasound scans.

It’s as if the objects were on a table in front of them.

Measure the diameter of an artery. Check for cysts in an organ. See exactly where tissue and a tumor intersect. Grab, spin and zoom in on the imagery in real time. You can even identify and separate an object from the rest of the image — to get a distinct 3D view of a tumor, for example.

With the True 3D Viewer, medical professionals can expand their diagnostic and surgical planning. So patients get better, more reliable results.

Getting EchoPixel’s incredible results require some serious computing power. That’s where the Quadro K4200 graphics card comes in. We designed this card for professional use, with all the reliability, optimization and performance that entails.

The K4200 sprints through image data, processing information so fast that doctors can view everything in real time. There’s no lag in manipulating imagery in 3D.

True 3D Viewer was recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

And it’s already in trials with hospitals across the country, including Stanford University and the University of California, San Francisco.

In addition, companies like Foxconn have an educational version of the viewer.

As a patient engagement tool, True 3D Viewer allows doctors to clearly communicate with patients to understand surgeries and improve compliance with treatment plans.

EchoPixel will be showing True 3D Viewer at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine Conference, in Booth 400 during May 28-30, in Washington.

There, you can also see NVIDIA Quadro GPUs powering solutions from Candelis, Dell, EIZO, FujiFilm, McKesson, Merge, Visage Imaging and Vital Images.