To test the device, two physicians at St. Louis Children's Hospital received a short training session on the device before using it on a total of 16 pediatric patients. During a post-procedure waiting phase, the physicians were given 60 seconds to navigate to each of five target markers within the geometry of the heart, using both the 3D ?LVIS and the 2D EAMS technology. The physicians were significantly more accurate with the ?LVIS technology.
"Without the use of the ?LVIS 3D display, a significant fraction of ablation lesions, 34%, would be made outside of the target area, as opposed to 6% with ?LVIS 3D display," Jon Silva said. "We expect that this will improve patient outcomes and potentially reduce the need for repeat procedures."
Jennifer Silva said the team learned a lot from taking something from the lab to nearly market-ready.
"What ended up being equally important, if not more important, was that this was the springboard for everything that is to come, not only that we can visualize it better, but that we can control it," Jennifer Silva said. "There are people working in this extended reality space who have come to conclusions that the control is the strongest value-add, particularly in medical applications."
The Silvas licensed their technology to SentiAR, which is further developing the augmented reality software. SentiAR has funding from the National Institutes of Health as well as St. Louis investment firms Cultivation Capital and BioGenerator. They are working with the university's Office of Technology Management to bring the technology to market and have submitted it to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration for approval.
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