3D Surgical Alert Zone Overlay for Critical Anatomy Avoidance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current medical procedures lack the ability to accurately and clearly present critical anatomical structures to be avoided during surgeries, such as cortical walls, nerves, and blood vessels, necessitating a system to define and display alert zones to prevent damage.
Innovation Solution
A surgical navigation system that includes a display device and a controller to define alert boundaries, buffer surfaces, and buffer zones within a volumetric representation of patient anatomy, using anatomy and alert zone distance fields to visually overlay alert zones on the patient anatomy.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If traditional surgical navigation displays are used, then the system is simple to operate, but the visualization of critical anatomical structures is insufficient and unclear
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the anatomical volume into distinct regions: the alert boundary (critical structure surface), buffer zone (protective margin), and safe zone. This segmentation allows clear visual differentiation of critical areas from surrounding anatomy, directly addressing the insufficient visualization problem while maintaining manageable system complexity through modular processing.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from 2D cross-sectional displays to 3D volumetric rendering with surface offset calculations. By creating a buffer zone that extends outward from the alert boundary in three dimensions and visualizing it with transparency and color coding, the system provides comprehensive spatial information about critical structures, resolving the visualization insufficiency.
2Manufacturing precision
If detailed volumetric visualization is implemented, then surgical precision is improved, but the computational processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs alert boundary extraction and buffer zone calculation during the preoperative planning phase, before the actual surgical procedure begins. This preliminary processing allows complex volumetric calculations to be completed in advance, providing high-precision visualization during surgery without adding real-time computational delays to the surgical workflow.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a simplified graphical representation (buffer zone overlay) that copies and emphasizes the critical alert boundary information. Instead of processing and displaying the entire complex volumetric dataset in real-time, the system generates a focused overlay showing only the buffer zone and alert boundary, maintaining surgical precision while reducing computational burden during the procedure.
Data Source
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AI summary
A surgical navigation system is provided. The surgical navigation system comprises a display device and a memory device containing a volumetric image, which includes a volumetric representation of the patient anatomy. The surgical navigation system also comprises a controller in communication with the display and the memory device, the controller configured to define a portion of volumetric representation as an alert boundary, define a buffer surface surrounding the alert boundary and offset from the alert boundary by a predefined buffer distance, define a buffer zone as a portion of the volumetric image enclosed by the buffer surface, define a portion of the buffer zone as a visualized portion of the buffer zone, and control the display device to display the visualized portion of the buffer zone overlaid on the volumetric representation of the patient anatomy.