Comparison of Augmented Reality Display Techniques to Support Medical Needle Insertion.

Florian Heinrich,Christian Hansen,Luisa Schwenderling,Kai Lawonn,Fabian Joeres

doi:10.1109/tvcg.2020.3023637

Abstract

Augmented reality (AR) may be a useful technique to overcome issues of conventionally used navigation systems supporting medical needle insertions, like increased mental workload and complicated hand-eye coordination. Previous research primarily focused on the development of AR navigation systems designed for specific displaying devices, but differences between employed methods have not been investigated before. To this end, a user study involving a needle insertion task was conducted comparing different AR display techniques with a monitor-based approach as baseline condition for the visualization of navigation information. A video see-through stationary display, an optical see-through head-mounted display and a spatial AR projector-camera-system were investigated in this comparison. Results suggest advantages of using projected navigation information in terms of lower task completion time, lower angular deviation and affirmative subjective participant feedback. Techniques requiring the intermediate view on screens, i.e. the stationary display and the baseline condition, showed less favorable results. Thus, benefits of providing AR navigation information compared to a conventionally used method could be identified. Significant objective measures results, as well as an identification of advantages and disadvantages of individual display techniques contribute to the development and design of improved needle navigation systems.

Highlights

Compared to open surgery, minimally invasive interventions do not require the patient to be opened, which results in benefits like reduced risk of infections and less damage to healthy tissue [7, 30]
The concept of augmented reality (AR) was applied to surgical navigation systems to mitigate these issues by directly superimposing the view on the patient with needed information [14]
The rationale for a constant display position was to create comparable experimental conditions between participants, which may have been compromised by different tablet computer postures

Summary

Introduction

Minimally invasive interventions do not require the patient to be opened, which results in benefits like reduced risk of infections and less damage to healthy tissue [7, 30]. By providing visualizations guiding the needle insertion process, these systems were shown to reduce the procedure time and the number of needed imaging scans, as well as to improve targeting accuracy [32,36]. Guidance information of conventional navigation systems is usually displayed on external monitors. Consulting these screens interrupts the interventionalist’s attention to the patient and increases time pressure and mental workload [33]. The concept of augmented reality (AR) was applied to surgical navigation systems to mitigate these issues by directly superimposing the view on the patient with needed information [14]

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion