Abstract
PurposeIn surgical oncology, complete cancer resection and lymph node identification are challenging due to the lack of reliable intraoperative visualization. Recently, endoscopic radio-guided cancer resection has been introduced where a novel tethered laparoscopic gamma detector can be used to determine the location of tracer activity, which can complement preoperative nuclear imaging data and endoscopic imaging. However, these probes do not clearly indicate where on the tissue surface the activity originates, making localization of pathological sites difficult and increasing the mental workload of the surgeons. Therefore, a robust real-time gamma probe tracking system integrated with augmented reality is proposed.MethodsA dual-pattern marker has been attached to the gamma probe, which combines chessboard vertices and circular dots for higher detection accuracy. Both patterns are detected simultaneously based on blob detection and the pixel intensity-based vertices detector and used to estimate the pose of the probe. Temporal information is incorporated into the framework to reduce tracking failure. Furthermore, we utilized the 3D point cloud generated from structure from motion to find the intersection between the probe axis and the tissue surface. When presented as an augmented image, this can provide visual feedback to the surgeons.ResultsThe method has been validated with ground truth probe pose data generated using the OptiTrack system. When detecting the orientation of the pose using circular dots and chessboard dots alone, the mean error obtained is 0.05^{circ } and 0.06^{circ }, respectively. As for the translation, the mean error for each pattern is 1.78 mm and 1.81 mm. The detection limits for pitch, roll and yaw are 360^{circ }, 360^{circ } and 8^{circ }–82^{circ }cup 188^{circ }–352^{circ } .ConclusionThe performance evaluation results show that this dual-pattern marker can provide high detection rates, as well as more accurate pose estimation and a larger workspace than the previously proposed hybrid markers. The augmented reality will be used to provide visual feedback to the surgeons on the location of the affected lymph nodes or tumor.
Highlights
According to Cancer Research UK, prostate cancer is reported as one of the most common cancers in men in the UK with 47,700 new cases and 11,500 deaths reported each year [1]
The pose estimation errors from the circular dots and the chessboard vertices patterns were quite similar and less than 2 mm, which means that both patterns worked well
Given the position of the model points defined in the local coordinate frame on the marker and the correspondence-tracked projections on the image, the pose of the marker was estimated by using the infinitesimal plane-based pose estimation (IPPE) method
Summary
According to Cancer Research UK, prostate cancer is reported as one of the most common cancers in men in the UK with 47,700 new cases and 11,500 deaths reported each year [1]. B Baoru Huang is surgery, and minimally invasive surgery (MIS) including robot-assisted procedures are increasingly used due to its significant advantages, such as reducing the risk of infection and trauma to the patient’s tissues [2]. Surgeons still rely on their naked eye and sense of touch to detect where the cancer is located in the tissue. To address the compromised vision and tactile feedback in MIS, Lightpoint Medical Ltd. has developed a miniaturized cancer detection probe for MIS, called ‘SENSEI®’ (see Fig. 1a). This tethered laparoscopic probe relies on the cancer-targeting ability of established nuclear probes to International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery (2020) 15:1389–1397 identify the cancerous regions of the tissue more accurately [3]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
