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The imaging system allows them to see depth and perform beating-heart operations on babies with heart disease and complex beating-heart operations on adults, without opening the chest and carrying out a bypass.

The researchers, led by Pedro del Nido MD and Nikolay Vasilyev MD, found that watching a flat picture on a computer

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screen was like watching a sports game on TV: "It's good enough to follow what's happening in the game, but you could never grab a ball in mid-flight," said del Nido.

Collaborator Dr Robert Howe of Harvard University found a solution in stereo glasses, which split computer images in two, cocking them at slightly different angles. This allows users to see ultrasound images of the beating heart as a hologram.

"You definitely have depth perception," said Vasilyev. "You feel like you're inside the heart chamber."

Clinical trials of beating-heart surgery with the patching system could begin in children this year. The researchers believe that stereoscopic imaging will eventually assist surgeons in doing much more complex operations on beating hearts. "We look at some very unusual cardiac anatomy," said Del Nido. "Half the battle is figuring out what the structure is without opening up the heart."