Tactile VR for hand–eye coordination in simulated PTCA

Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) is a minimally invasive image-guided technique for treatment of coronary diseases. PTCA procedure requires physicians to have good skills of hand–eye coordination in performing the operation. Training of PTCA thus very much emphasizes skill building for hand–eye coordination. We have been developing virtual reality (VR) technology for medical simulation. In this paper, we will address the issue of VR-based simulation for the enhancement of hand–eye coordination for PTCA operation. Starting from the characterization of PTCA procedure, we examine what roles VR can play in training of PTCA physicians. We then describe a computerized PTCA training system we have developed which is composed of a tactile interface and a visual interface. The system is designed in such a way that real PTCA devices (including catheters and guide-wires) can be used to mimic the requirements of the CathLab. The backend computational engine supporting the real-time and realistic PTCA simulation is also presented.