Immersive 3-Dimensional Virtual Reality Modeling for Case-Specific Presurgical Discussions in Cerebrovascular Neurosurgery

BACKGROUND: Adequate surgical planning includes a precise understanding of patient-specific anatomy and is a necessity for neurosurgeons. Although the use of virtual reality (VR) technology is emerging in surgical planning and education, few studies have examined the effectiveness of immersive VR during surgical planning using a modern head-mounted display. OBJECTIVE: To investigate if and how immersive VR aids presurgical discussions of cerebrovascular surgery. METHODS: A multiuser immersive VR system, BananaVision(TM), was developed and used during presurgical discussions in a prospective patient cohort undergoing cerebrovascular surgery. A questionnaire/interview was administered to multiple surgeons after the surgeries to evaluate the effectiveness of the VR system compared to conventional imaging modalities. An objective assessment of the surgeon's knowledge of patient-specific anatomy was also conducted by rating surgeons' hand-drawn presurgical illustrations. RESULTS: The VR session effectively enhanced surgeons' understanding of patient-specific anatomy in the majority of cases (83.3%). An objective assessment of surgeons' presurgical illustrations was consistent with this result. The VR session also effectively improved the decision-making process regarding minor surgical techniques in 61.1% of cases and even aided surgeons in making critical surgical decisions about cases involving complex and challenging anatomy. The utility of the VR system was rated significantly higher by trainees than by experts. CONCLUSION: Although rated as more useful by trainees than by experts, immersive 3D VR modeling increased surgeons' understanding of patient-specific anatomy and improved surgical strategy in certain cases involving challenging anatomy.