3D scans alleviate need for many invasive procedures

Without opening Mary Stanford's chest, Charles Pope can study key valves in her heart. Even better, he can see them in real-time three-dimensional ultrasound images that he can spin on the screen to study from different angles.

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Zach Boyden-Holmes/Staff

Charles Pope, clinical echocardiography program manager for University Hospital, uses a 3-D ultrasound to look at Mary Stanford's heart.

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Zach Boyden-Holmes/Staff

Pope says the technology can reduce the surprises that doctors often encounter during procedures.

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Images in 3-D can do more than thrill watchers of the last Harry Potter movie. In echocardiograms of the heart, for instance, 3-D technology can allow surgeons to study heart valves before they open the chest and in some cases keep them from cracking the chest altogether.

The visual difference between the technologies is striking. As an example, Pope, the clinical echocardiography program manager at University Hospital, called up a two-dimensional black-and-white movie of a mitral valve opening and closing rapidly in the heart.

"To echocardiographers, that's a pretty good image," he said. Then he switched to 3-D, and the image appeared in color and lines suddenly popped out. "But look at that."

Such images mean fewer surprises for surgeons in the operating room, Pope said.

"That's one of the key things that three-dimensional has opened the door for, for preoperative planning for cardiothoracic surgeons that want to look at that valve before they actually plan their procedure, whether it will be a valve repair or whether it will be a mechanical valve placed," he said.

The images can tell them how well they did. A 3-D transesophageal echocardiogram, where a probe goes through the throat after a valve has been repaired, can confirm the valve is closing completely, Pope said.

"It's kind of a validation of their surgical skills," he said.

The ability to manipulate an image to study it from all sides is also a plus.

"There's almost an infinite amount of possibilities to look at the structures with 3-D and to appreciate the anatomy," Pope said.

The 3-D transthoracic echocardiogram is useful for various procedures, such as gauging heart failure and picking up congenital defects in newborns, Pope said.

"That actually would cancel, in many circumstances, the need for any invasive procedure whatsoever," he said.