Lung Navigation Pathway Registration Using 3D Anatomy Matching

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing navigation systems for medical devices within the body, such as endoscopes, suffer from inaccuracies due to CT-to-body divergence, leading to increased surgical times and radiation exposure from fluoroscopic corrections.

Innovation Solution

A surgical system that generates a 3D reconstruction of the patient's anatomy using pre-procedure images, registers real-time images from a camera on the device to this model, and navigates the device to a target tissue by comparing anatomical structures, minimizing the need for electromagnetic navigation and fluoroscopy.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If electromagnetic tracking or fluoroscopic navigation is used to correct location inaccuracies, then navigation reliability is improved, but surgical time and radiation exposure increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvenavigation accuracyVSAvoidsurgical time

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary registration of the surgical device to the 3D anatomical model before the main surgical procedure. By establishing the initial spatial relationship between the device and patient anatomy in advance, the system eliminates the need for repeated fluoroscopic corrections during surgery, thereby reducing surgical time while maintaining navigation accuracy

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system continuously tracks the position of the surgical device and provides real-time feedback by overlaying device location on the 3D anatomical model. This continuous monitoring and feedback mechanism allows for accurate navigation without requiring intermittent fluoroscopic verification, thus reducing both surgical time and radiation exposure while maintaining reliability

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

2Reliability

If electromagnetic tracking or fluoroscopic navigation is used to correct location inaccuracies, then navigation reliability is improved, but radiation exposure increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvenavigation accuracyVSAvoidradiation exposure

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The system extracts and eliminates the need for fluoroscopic navigation by using alternative optical tracking and 3D model registration methods. By removing the fluoroscopy component from the navigation process, the system maintains navigation accuracy through image registration while completely avoiding the radiation exposure associated with fluoroscopic corrections

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The system replaces the fluoroscopic imaging mechanism with an optical tracking and image registration system. By substituting the radiation-based fluoroscopy with non-ionizing optical methods for device tracking and position verification, the system achieves the same navigation reliability without exposing the patient to additional radiation

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

3Measurement precision

If real-time image registration and comparison is performed, then navigation accuracy is improved, but device complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedevice location accuracyVSAvoidsystem complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system creates a 3D digital copy or model of the patient's internal anatomy from pre-acquired CT or MRI images. This virtual anatomical model serves as a reference for registering and tracking the surgical device position, achieving high measurement precision through image-to-model comparison while avoiding the need for complex real-time intraoperative imaging hardware

Inventive Principle:

Principle #26Copying

Solution Approach 2:

The system performs the complex image processing and 3D model generation in advance, before the surgical procedure begins. By completing the computationally intensive tasks of image reconstruction, segmentation, and model creation beforehand, the system reduces the computational burden during surgery, thereby improving measurement precision without proportionally increasing the complexity of the real-time surgical system

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentUS12558164B2Creating a navigation pathway to a target in the lung and method of navigating to the target

Publication Date: 2026.02.24 COVIDIEN LP

AI summary

A system for performing a surgical procedure includes a controller including a memory and a processor, the memory storing instructions, which when executed by the processor cause the processor to receive a plurality of pre-procedure images of a patient's anatomy, label anatomical structures within at least a portion of the pre-procedure images, generate a three-dimensional reconstruction of the patient's anatomy using the plurality of pre-procedure images, receive an image captured by the camera, identify anatomical structures within the image captured by the camera to labeled anatomical structures within the plurality of pre-procedure images, identify an image from the plurality of pre-procedure images that corresponds to the image captured by the camera, and register the location where the image was captured by the camera to the three-dimensional reconstruction of the patient's anatomy.