P369 Patient specific virtual reality for education in congenital heart disease

Abstract

Background: Virtual reality (VR) provides a unique possibility to interact with three-dimensional objects. Still in its infancy, the integration of VR with advanced cardiovascular imaging technology allows users to handle patient-specific cardiac models. Purpose(s): The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential role of VR in teaching cardiac morphology of congenital heart diseases to healthcare professionals. Method(s): From October 2018 to April 2019, a VR application was developed in-house and incorporated within the Cardiac Morphology courses run monthly at our centre. The VR software included patient-specific 3D models which were reconstructed from 3D imaging datasets (micro-CT, CT, CMR or 3D echo data). The most important cardiac structures were labelled to allow easier identification of anatomical features (Figure 1). Each participant had the possibility to evaluate 6 different patient specific models including: a foetal normal heart, a foetal Transposition of the Great Arteries, a foetal Atrioventricular septal defect, a four-month-old Tetralogy of Fallot, a four-month-old Double Outlet Right Ventricle with uncommitted ventricular septal defect and a one-year-old Patent Ductus Arteriosus. All the attendees could evaluate the models individually for 5 to 15 minutes. A short survey with six questions was administered at the end of the session. The survey included sections asking for professional background information, prior VR experience and feedback on the VR experience which was assessed with a 5 points Likert-type scale (from 1 to 5). Result(s): The VR session was attended by 20 delegates with mixed professional backgrounds including cardiac surgeons, cardiologists, cardiac anaesthesiologists, paediatricians, pathologists and medical students. Only 2 out of 20 had tried a virtual reality application before, although neither of those prior VR experiences had a medical focus. The VR application was considered ''extremely helpful'' (5/5) in understanding the anatomy by 44% of participants, and ''very helpful''(4/5) by another 44%. The methods of interaction (e.g. grabbing objects, using a cutting tool) were considered "extremely intuitive'' (5/5) by 72% of attendees, and "very intuitive"(4/5) by 27%. In 94% of the cases, the attendees responded to be "very willing"(4/5) or "extremely willing"(5/5) to implement a VR setup at their own institutions for the purpose of evaluating cardiac anatomies. Conclusion(s): The use of the VR station in cardiac morphology courses was very well received by the attendees, as it is frequently considered easy to use and very helpful in aiding the understanding of congenital heart diseases. The survey highlighted a great potential for implementing this tool in educational programmes. (Figure Presented).