Medical imaging VR: can immersive 3D aid in diagnosis?

Abstract

In the radiology diagnosis process, medical images are most often visualized slice by slice on 2D screens or printed. At the same time, the visualization based on 3D volumetric rendering of the data is considered useful and has increased its field of application. In this work we present a user study with medical specialists to assess the diagnostic effectiveness of VR usage in fracture identification over 3D volumetric reconstructions. We then performed user experiments to validate the approach in the medical practice. In addition, we assessed the subjects perception of the 3D reconstruction quality and ease of interaction. Among other results, we have found a very high level of effectiveness of the VR interface in identifying superficial fractures on head CTs.