Surgical navigation using preoperative and intraoperative imaging devices
Charles P. Steiner, Eric LaPresto, Joseph F. Hahn, William D. Richard · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1998
Surgical navigation embodies the use of landmarks to guide a surgeon along a specified course. Often this course is chosen through the careful analysis of the patient's anatomy using accurate images obtained before surgery begins. The very nature of an invasive surgical procedure involves the alteration of the patients anatomy during the course of the procedure and as a result the preoperative images do not accurately reflect the state of the patient that the surgeon is attempting to navigate through once the procedure has begun. We have developed a system to augment the preoperative imaging data with that of imaging data acquired intraoperatively. This provides a more accurate reflection of the surgeon's current position and orientation with respect to the patient's anatomy and enables a more aggressive approach to the clinical procedure.