Augmented Reality Central Venous Access Training Simulator

The central venous access procedure is used for placing a catheter for venous interventions, defibrillator devices or even filters when required. The access depends on patient-related factors that may increase the procedure’s difficulty. However, when performing the procedure on newborns, the level of difficulty rises considerably and any mistake may cause damages on tissues, lungs or the accessed vein, those can affect the medical condition of the patient. This work focus on the development of an augmented reality application for training pediatricians in the central venous access in newborns while allowing handling surgical tools. The system has a 3D marker tracking, that enables the user interact with models of surgical tools such as syringe, blunt guidewire, dilating device and catheter, each one of them shows up over the marker. The prototype is programmed in Unity3D with the use of AR Vuforia library and an Oculus VR with an attached webcam. The system makes a suitable tracking of the surgical instruments within a controlled lighting. To conclude, finished and suitable prototype will be tested with the help of medical students to validate their impact as simulator training in this technique.