135 - Development of VR from CT Scans to Assist in Anatomy Teaching

Poster Board Number: 135
There are separate poster presentation times for odd and even posters.
Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Abstract Body : Introduction
“How can we improve Allied Health students’ capacity to learning Anatomy which they always refer to as a difficult subject as well as not easy to remember?”
The main aim of this project is to create an accurate 3D teaching platform that fulfils the current requirements in teaching anatomy and evaluate the effectiveness of that system. This 3D teaching platform can be further used in organ 3D printing for teaching as well. Virtual Human Anatomy Program (VHAP) was developed to assist with the anatomy learning experience of our students.
The availability of digitized teaching materials has proven to be of extreme importance to aid in understanding and maximizing the learning outcomes for students. This importance has been put on the spot and emphasized during the COVID-19 home based education as we all had to rely solely on digitized materials.
Lately, virtual reality (VR) is gaining more favor from the younger generations due to its higher interactive mode. As a result, using virtual reality as a gamified learning platform for teaching anatomy, clinical anatomy and surgery became the current goal. Some commercial models are already available, but they lack the correct anatomical details which deters educators to rely on them. Newly available technologies and software could help us to overcome this problem by granting maximum utilization and manipulation of medical imaging datasets (CT, MRI, PET, ultrasound, mammography etc) to create a completely accurate 3D anatomical model.

Methodology
Real patient CT data is DICOM format were obtained from our clinical partners and completely deidentified. Later on, these data were segmented using various software (AW VolumShare 7 / OsiriX) to obtain different structures; bony surface, soft tissue and vascular blood supply can be segmented using low threshold at 100HU. This allows low density pixels out, isolating bony structures from soft tissues. The process of segmentation includes automatic segmentation by the system software and manual segmentation to clear edges that are not related to the particular structure. Segmentation and surface rendering post processing applications are done using the software to produce 3D image of individual tissues, organs and anatomical structures.

Results
We were able to create a complete cardiovascular system in VR format which also includes short lectures notes and self-testing mode to evaluate each session effectiveness.

Conclusion
The initial results suggest that the VHAP system is adding value to the learning process of our students and encouraging them to get more involved and to ask more questions.
Students’ comments show that they are excited about the VHAP system with comments about its interactivity as well as the ability to use it solo as a self-learning aid in combination with the lectures. It’s also worth noticing that some students experienced minor side effects like dizziness from using the VR googles.

Keywords; 3D construction, Health Sciences, Teaching pedagogy and Virtual Reality.