Towards Augmented Reality Guided Craniotomy Planning in Tumour Resections

Abstract

Augmented reality has been proposed as a solution to overcome some of the current shortcomings of image-guided neurosurgery. In particular, it has been used to merge patient images, surgical plans, and the surgical field of view into a comprehensive visualization. In this paper we explore the use of augmented reality for planning craniotomies in image-guided neurosurgery procedures for tumour resections. Our augmented reality image-guided neurosurgery system was brought into the operating room for 8 cases where the surgeon used augmented reality prior to tumour resection. We describe our initial results that suggest that augmented reality can play an important role in tailoring the size and shape of the craniotomy and for evaluating intra-operative surgical strategies. With continued development and validation, augmented reality guidance has the potential to improve the minimally invasiveness of image-guided neurosurgery through improved intraoperative surgical planning.