3D dynamic roadmapping for abdominal catheterizations.

Despite rapid advances in interventional imaging, the navigation of a guide wire through abdominal vasculature remains, not only for novice radiologists, a difficult task. Since this navigation is mostly based on 2D fluoroscopic image sequences from one view, the process is slowed down significantly due to missing depth information and patient motion. We propose a novel approach for 3D dynamic roadmapping in deformable regions by predicting the location of the guide wire tip in a 3D vessel model from the tip's 2D location, respiratory motion analysis, and view geometry. In a first step, the method compensates for the apparent respiratory motion in 2D space before backprojecting the 2D guide wire tip into three dimensional space, using a given projection matrix. To countervail the error connected to the projection parameters and the motion compensation, as well as the ambiguity caused by vessel deformation, we establish a statistical framework, which computes a reliable estimate of the guide wire tip location within the 3D vessel model. With this 2D-to-3D transfer, the navigation can be performed from arbitrary viewing angles, disconnected from the static perspective view of the fluoroscopic sequence. Tests on a realistic breathing phantom and on synthetic data with a known ground truth clearly reveal the superiority of our approach compared to naive methods for 3D roadmapping. The concepts and information presented in this paper are based on research and are not commercially available.

A multi-view Opto-Xray imaging system: development and first application in trauma surgery.

The success of minimally invasive trauma and orthopedic surgery procedures has resulted in an increase of the use of fluoroscopic imaging. A system aiming to reduce the amount of radiation has been introduced by Navab et al. It uses an optical imaging system rigidly attached to the gantry such that the optical and X-ray imaging geometry is identical. As an extension to their solution, we developed a multi-view system which offers 3D navigation during trauma surgery and orthopedic procedures. We use an additional video camera in an orthogonal arrangement to the first video camera and a minimum of two X-ray images. Furthermore, tools such as a surgical drill are extended by optical markers and tracked with the same optical cameras. Exploiting that the cross ratio is invariant in projective geometry, we can estimate the tip of the instrument in the X-ray image without external tracking systems. This paper thus introduces the first multi-view Opto- Xray system for computer aided surgery. First tests have proven the accuracy of the calibration and the instrument tracking. Phantom and cadaver experiments were conducted for pedicle screw placement in spinal surgery. Using a postoperative CT, we evaluate the quality of the placement of the pedicle screws in 3D.