A prospective kidney donor was told he could not donate because of prohibitive anatomy seen on the pretransplant evaluation computed tomography angiography (CTA). However, the donor was highly motivated to donate (the recipient was his brother), so the CTA DICOM images were segmented to create a 3-dimensional model that could be evaluated in an immersive and stereoscopic virtual reality environment. Once the model was examined, the donor's anatomy was found to be acceptable, and he was approved.
These images from "Three-Dimensional Visualization With Virtual Reality Facilitates Complex Live Donor Renal Transplant" (doi: 10.31486/toj.22.0008) show the evaluation of the model in virtual reality (lower left) and an anterior view close-up of the arterial anatomy (lower right). Three-dimensional models can be explored on a desktop monitor without requiring a headset (upper image).