By Natalie Rahhal Deputy Health Editor For Dailymail.com
Published: 04:02 GMT, 26 March 2019 | Updated: 04:02 GMT, 26 March 2019
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New virtual reality technology lets doctors see the insides of patients' veins in 3D while they operate.
Interventional radiologists use imaging to navigate through tiny blood vessels and precisely treat everything from clots to strokes to cancer and more.
But the delicate, non-invasive procedures require them to use X-rays imaging to guide their tools throughout the procedures, exposing patients and themselves to radiation.
A new catheter, developed at the University of Washington is decked out with electromagnetic sensors feeds real-time imaging from inside blood vessels to a virtual reality headset, making the procedures safer and more precise than ever before.
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A futuristic image shows an interventional radiologist doing a procedure in a model patient's blood vessels with the VR rendering of the vessels they are seeing in their headset
Virtual reality has generated a fair amount of excitement in the medical world, largely because it allows medical students or surgeons about to undertake complex procedures an opportunity to practice on something more responsive than a cadaver and less high-stakes than a
