Trackerless Image Guidance for Soft Tissue Surgery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional image guided surgery systems are cumbersome due to the need for optical and electromagnetic tracking technologies to localize tools and patients, requiring special coordination and often failing to provide effective trackerless surgical guidance for soft tissue procedures.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for trackerless image guided soft tissue surgery that involves generating three-dimensional textured point clouds, registering them to magnetic resonance models, performing intra-operative cortical surface registration, and adjusting image guidance systems based on deformation measurements to correct for organ shifts without the need for separate optical tracking devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If optical and electromagnetic tracking technologies are used to localize tools and patients in conventional image guided surgery, then localization accuracy is improved, but device complexity and ease of operation deteriorate due to the need for special coordination and cumbersome system integration
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes the separate optical and electromagnetic tracking systems from the surgical guidance system. Instead, it uses the surgical microscope's built-in camera to capture images of anatomical landmarks and perform registration, eliminating the need for external tracking devices and their associated complexity while maintaining localization accuracy
Solution Approach 2:
The surgical microscope is made multi-functional by using its camera not only for visualizing the surgical field but also for capturing anatomical landmarks and performing image-to-physical registration. This eliminates the need for separate tracking devices and simplifies the overall system while maintaining localization capabilities
2Measurement precision
If optical and electromagnetic tracking technologies are used to localize tools and patients, then localization accuracy is improved, but ease of operation worsens due to the need for special coordination between multiple systems
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the localization and visualization functions into a single integrated system. The surgical microscope's camera captures both the surgical field and anatomical landmarks, and the registration process combines image data with physical anatomy directly within the microscope environment, eliminating the need for coordination between separate tracking systems and simplifying operation
3Measurement precision
If conventional tracking technologies are used for image guided surgery, then image-to-physical registration is achieved, but the system fails to provide effective trackerless surgical guidance for soft tissue procedures
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses the surgical microscope's own camera to perform registration without requiring external tracking devices. The microscope captures images of anatomical landmarks and performs image-to-physical registration autonomously, providing effective trackerless surgical guidance that is particularly suited for soft tissue procedures where minimal equipment interference is needed
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for performing trackerless image guided soft tissue surgery. For a patient in need of brain surgery, pre-operative preparation for a patient is performed by generating a three-dimensional textured point cloud (TPC) for the patient's scalp surface, and registering the first three-dimensional TPC to a magnetic resonance (MR) model of the brain. During the surgery, an intra-operative cortical surface registration to the MR model is performed for the MR-to-cortical surface alignment. Then shift measurement and compensation to the MR model is performed by: performing absolute deformation measurement of the brain based on the MR model with the cortical surface registration, and obtaining shift correction to the MR model using the absolute deformation measurements. The shift correction may be used for adjusting an image guidance system (IGS) in the brain surgery.