December 23, 2010, 3:52 PM

New From Google: The Body Browser

By SINDYA N. BHANOO

Six years ago, I took a hard fall while playing soccer and tore a ligament in my knee.

As I weighed my treatment options in confusion, I searched on the Internet for images and videos to help me better understand how the knee works.

I wish I’d had access to Google’s Body Browser, a new, free 3-D tool that lets users rotate the body, peel back layers of it, and zoom in and zoom out, all from within an Internet browser window. There’s a search feature, so I typed in “anterior cruciate ligament” and it zoomed into the part of the knee that I’d injured.

It’s like a Gray’s Anatomy coloring book, come to life. I was curious, though, about what medical practitioners think about it. Is it something that medical students might use, or that doctors might use to educate patients?

When I talked to doctors who have played around with Body Browser, they said that isn’t nearly as detailed or sophisticated enough for a medical student. But, many told me, it may end up being an excellent teaching tool for patients.

“I could well imagine that this could replace the innumerable line drawings I’ve done on paper and on endless pairs of scrubs,” said Dr. Ziv Haskal, the chief of vascular and interventional radiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center. “If I could put it up on my iPad or local computer in front of them, that could be very useful.”

Keith Walker, a chiropractor in England, is already using the tool in his clinic. And so far, it’s been a hit.

“As a patient education tool, it’s one of the best I’ve seen,” he said. “There are other things like this on the Web, and they tend to be not as usable, or on medical university Web sites and directed at students.”

Mr. Walker wishes that the 3-D model had limbs that rotated. For example, users can’t lift the wrists of the model, which happen to block a portion of the hip.

The browser also lacks the sort of detail a serious student would need, he said. “If you look at the shoulder, you can’t peel off the layers,” he said. “There are some really important muscles under the deltoid, and you can’t see those.”

Dr. Haskal, too, had a couple of requests. “If we could modify or customize to demonstrate certain diseases, the way you can lay your own map on Google Maps, it would be wonderful,” he said.

Dr. Roni Zeiger, Google’s chief health strategist and an urgent-care physician, was reluctant to share too many details about what’s to come with the Body Browser, but he welcomes suggestions.

“We love all kinds of information, including visual information. And we built this to let anyone who’s curious about anatomy explore it,” he said. “We’ve gotten wonderful feedback from students, patients, teachers, physical therapists and doctors at all levels of training.”

He did say that Google plans to introduce a male model soon. Currently, the browser displays only a female body.

My own request? For the search bar to handle colloquial terms for body parts. Right now, you need to type in medical terms like “gastrocnemius” or “scapula” rather than commonly used ones like “calf” or “shoulder.”

I’m also wondering if one day I’ll be able to map my electronic health record directly to a 3-D model, so that I can visually track any ailments I might have. I reported on a similar technology in Denmark earlier this year.

Try it out if you’d like, and then please join the discussion below. What do you think of Body Browser? What works? What’s lacking?

Note: To use it, you’ll have to install the beta version of the Google Chrome browser, Mozilla Firefox 4 beta or another browser that supports WebGL, which allows for 3-D graphics to be displayed within a browser’s window. You can find those on the Google Body page.