Greg Kawchuck, DC, and colleagues combine X rays, virtual reality for new medical treatments

EDMONTON —No, they’re not X-ray specs. But a University of Alberta team has come up with a way to combine medical imaging with virtual reality to help clinicians locate and understand what’s happening inside their patients’ bodies as they treat them.

Greg Kawchuk and his colleagues have figured how to allow doctors or other medical professionals to see a patient’s X-ray and their body at the same time.

The clinician sees the X-ray through a set of commercially available virtual reality goggles.

He or she can line that image up with the patient in front of them, allowing them to get a much more precise idea of where the problem is and what it might be.

Kawchuk says the technology will remove a lot of the guesswork about exactly where features are in their patients’ bodies.