A multi-vertebrae CT to US registration of the lumbar spine in clinical data.

Purpose: Spinal needle injections are widely applied to alleviate back pain and for anesthesia. Current treatment is performed either blindly with palpation or using fluoroscopy or computed tomography (CT). Both fluoroscopy and CT guidance expose patients to ionizing radiation.

Computation and visualization of uncertainty in surgical navigation.

Background: Surgical displays do not show uncertainty information with respect to the position and orientation of instruments. Data is presented as though it were perfect; surgeons unaware of this uncertainty could make critical navigational mistakes.

Methods: The propagation of uncertainty to the tip of a surgical instrument is described and a novel uncertainty visualization method is proposed.