Image-guided Surgery Navigation Research Articles

Stereovision-based integrated system for point cloud reconstruction and simulated brain shift validation.

Intraoperative soft tissue deformation, referred to as brain shift, compromises the application of current image-guided surgery navigation systems in neurosurgery. A computational model driven by sparse data has been proposed as a cost-effective method to compensate for cortical surface and volumetric displacements. We present a mock environment developed to acquire stereoimages from a tracked operating microscope and to reconstruct three-dimensional point clouds from these images. A reconstruction error of 1mm is estimated by using a phantom with a known geometry and independently measured deformation extent. The microscope is tracked via an attached tracking rigid body that facilitates the recording of the position of the microscope via a commercial optical tracking system as it moves during the procedure. Point clouds, reconstructed under different microscope positions, are registered into the same space to compute the feature displacements. Using our mock craniotomy device, realistic cortical deformations are generated. When comparing our tracked microscope stereo-pair measure of mock vessel displacements to that of the measurement determined by the independent optically tracked stylus marking, the displacement error was [Formula: see text] on average. These results demonstrate the practicality of using tracked stereoscopic microscope as an alternative to laser range scanners to collect sufficient intraoperative information for brain shift correction.

Integration of the Image-Guided Surgery Toolkit (IGSTK) into the Medical Imaging Interaction Toolkit (MITK)

The development cycle of an image-guided surgery navigation system is too long to meet current clinical needs. This paper presents an integrated system developed by the integration of two open-source software (IGSTK and MITK) to shorten the development cycle of the image-guided surgery navigation system and save human resources simultaneously. An image-guided surgery navigation system was established by connecting the two aforementioned open-source software libraries. It used the Medical Imaging Interaction Toolkit (MITK) as a framework providing image processing tools for the image-guided surgery navigation system of medical imaging software with a high degree of interaction and used the Image-Guided Surgery Toolkit (IGSTK) as a library that provided the basic components of the system for location, tracking, and registration. The electromagnetic tracking device was used to measure the real-time position of surgical tools and fiducials attached to the patient's anatomy. IGSTK was integrated into MITK; at the same time, the compatibility and the stability of this system were emphasized. Experiments showed that an integrated system of the image-guided surgery navigation system could be developed in 2 months. The integration of IGSTK into MITK is feasible. Several techniques for 3D reconstruction, geometric analysis, mesh generation, and surface data analysis for medical image analysis of MITK can connect with the techniques for location, tracking, and registration of IGSTK. This integration of advanced modalities can decrease software development time and emphasize the precision, safety, and robustness of the image-guided surgery navigation system.

Three-dimensional multimodal image non-rigid registration and fusion in a High Intensity Focused Ultrasound system

High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) has been successfully applied in tumor therapy. For a successful HIFU therapy, it is crucial to localize the tumor region accurately. In this paper, we present a semi-automatic non-rigid registration method for implementing image guided surgery navigation and localization by matching pre-operative CT/MR images and intra-operative ultrasound images. The global motion of the target is modeled by an affine transformation, while the local deformation of the target is described by Free-Form Deformation (FFD) based on B-splines. The results of our experiments on simulated and real data show that the non-rigid registration method based on HPV interpolation (partial volume based on the Hanning windowed sinc function) is effective at restraining local extrema and improves the accuracy of registration results. A preliminary clinical validation of the use of the non-rigid registration method in image guided localization of a HIFU system is also reported.

From medical image computing to computer‐aided intervention: development of a research interface for image‐guided navigation

This paper describes the development and application of a research interface to integrate research image analysis software with a commercial image-guided surgery navigation system. This interface enables bi-directional transfer of data such as images, visualizations and tool positions in real time. We describe both the design and the application programming interface of the research interface, as well as showing the function of an example client program. The resulting interface provides a practical and versatile link for bringing image analysis research techniques into the operating room (OR). We present examples from the successful use of this research interface in both phantom experiments and real neurosurgeries. In particular, we demonstrate that the integrated dual-computer system achieves tool-tracking performance that is comparable to the more typical single-computer scenario. Network interfaces for this type are viable solutions for the integration of commercial image-guided navigation systems and research software.