A Novel Surface Registration for Image-Guided Neurosurgery: Effects of Intervals of Points in Patient Space on Registration Accuracy

Abstract

Surface registration is an important factor in surgical navigation in determining the success rate and stability of surgery by providing the operator with the exact location of a lesion. The problem of surface registration is that point cloud in the patient space is acquired at irregular intervals due to the operator’s tracking speed and method. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of irregular intervals of point cloud caused by tracking speed and method on the registration accuracy. For this study, we created the head phantom to obtain a point cloud in the patient space with a similar object to that of a patient and acquired a point cloud in a total of ten times. In order to analyze the accuracy of registration according to the interval, cubic spline interpolation was applied to the existing point cloud. Additionally, irregular intervals of the point cloud were regenerated into regular intervals. As a result of applying the regenerated point cloud to the surface registration, the surface registration error was not statistically different from the existing point cloud. However, the target registration error significantly lower (p < 0.01). These results indicate that the intervals of point cloud affect the accuracy of registration, and that point cloud with regular intervals can improve the surface registration accuracy.