Passive markers for tracking surgical instruments in real-time 3-D ultrasound imaging.

A family of passive echogenic markers is presented by which the position and orientation of a surgical instrument can be determined in a 3-D ultrasound volume, using simple image processing. Markers are attached near the distal end of the instrument so that they appear in the ultrasound volume along with the instrument tip. They are detected and measured within the ultrasound image, thus requiring no external tracking device.

Image registration assists novice operators in ultrasound assessment of abdominal trauma.

Transcutaneous ultrasound imaging may be used to detect abdominal hemorrhage in the field setting. The Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma (FAST) examination was developed to characterize blunt abdominal trauma and has been shown to be effective for assessing penetrating trauma as well. However, it is unlikely that a minimally trained operator could perform a diagnostic examination.

GPU based real-time instrument tracking with three dimensional ultrasound.

Real-time 3D ultrasound can enable new image-guided surgical procedures, but high data rates prohibit the use of traditional tracking techniques. We present a new method based on the modified Radon transform that identifies the axis of instrument shafts as bright patterns in planar projections. Instrument rotation and tip location are then determined using fiducial markers.

Passive markers for ultrasound tracking of surgical instruments.

A family of passive markers is presented by which the position and orientation of a surgical instrument can be computed from its ultrasound image using simple image processing. These markers address the problem of imaging instruments and tissue simultaneously in ultrasound-guided interventions. Marker-based estimates of instrument location can be used in augmented reality displays or for image-based servoing.

Three-dimensional echo-guided beating heart surgery without cardiopulmonary bypass: atrial septal defect closure in a swine model.

Objective: In this study, we tested 3 techniques of atrial septal defect closure under real-time 3-dimensional echocardiography guidance in a swine model.

Methods: The operations were conducted under the sole guidance of a modified real-time 3-dimensional echocardiography guidance system with a x4 matrix transducer (Sonos 7500, Philips Medical Systems, Andover, Mass). Eighteen swine were anesthetized, and after median sternotomy, the echo probe was applied directly to the surface of the right atrium.

Three-dimensional echocardiography-guided beating-heart surgery without cardiopulmonary bypass: a feasibility study.

Background: There is no current acceptable approach for intracardiac beating-heart interventions. We have adapted real-time 3-dimensional echocardiography with specialized instrumentation to facilitate beating-heart repair of atrial septal defects and mitral valve plasty to investigate the feasibility of real-time 3-dimensional echocardiography-guided cardiac surgery.

Methods: In experiment I a modified real-time 3-dimensional echocardiography system with x4 matrix transducer was compared with 2-dimensional echocardiography in the performance of common surgical tasks.

Real-time three-dimensional ultrasound for guiding surgical tasks.

Objective: As a stand-alone imaging modality, two-dimensional (2D) ultrasound (US) can only guide basic interventional tasks due to the limited spatial orientation information contained in these images. High-resolution real-time three-dimensional (3D) US can potentially overcome this limitation, thereby expanding the applications for US-guided procedures to include intracardiac surgery and fetal surgery, while potentially improving results of solid organ interventions such as image-guided breast, liver or prostate procedures. The following study examines the benefits of real-time 3D US for performing both basic and complex image-guided surgical tasks.

Port Placement Planning in Robot-Assisted Coronary Artery Bypass.

Properly selected port sites for robot-assisted coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) improve the efficiency and quality of these procedures. In clinical practice, surgeons select port locations using external anatomic landmarks to estimate a patient's internal anatomy. This paper proposes an automated approach to port selection based on a preoperative image of the patient, thus avoiding the need to estimate internal anatomy.