Doctors can now hold a brain or liver in their hands, detach a tumour or examine the mesh of blood vessels attached to organs, toy with the heart or shove a hand or two into the intestines- all without spilling a drop of blood. This is the 3-dimensional world where the marriage between hitec imaging and virtual reality has produced a clutch of new tools to examine the organs.

Dr Ralf Kockro of Singapore said, instead of using the mouse to get slices of organs, doctors can now work with their hands in a virtual reality environment. Using high-end software and sharp images, doctors can virtually put their hands into a computer screen to get a feel of the organ.

Using the hand to turn the organ in any direction and a special electronic pencil to slice the organs, doctors can virtually get into the depths of the liver or the brain to study a tumour or an aneurysm. They can also drill a hole to scoop out a tumour and study what collateral damages are in store before they take the real surgery.

The DextraScope allows a surgeon to interact with 3D data using his hands and fingers. Using the stereoscopic glasses, the images are so real that the organs would virtually jump out at you, said Dr Kockro. Also out is the DextraBeam and in the final phase is DextraNet, where doctors can send the 3D images to another doctor across the globe. Doctors can also simultaneously study the organ or cut out an area for a closer look, all on a virtual platform.

All this is going to revolutionalise the way surgeons would save an organ or remove a tumour. The accuracy and the outcome would be sharper and patient-friendly.