Augmented Reality-Assisted CT-Guided Puncture: A Phantom Study.

Purpose: To investigate the feasibility of a novel augmented reality system for CT-guided liver interventions and to compare it with free-hand interventions in a phantom setting.

Methods And Materials: A newly developed augmented reality interface was used, with projection of CT-imaging in multiplanar reconstruction and live rendering of the needle position, a bull`s eye view of the needle trajectory and a visualization of the distance to the target. Punctures were performed on a custom-made abdominal phantom by three interventional radiologists with different levels of expertise. Time and needle placement accuracy were measured. Two-tailed Wilcoxon signed rank test (p < 0.05) was performed to evaluate intraparticipant difference.

Results: Intraparticipant puncture times were significantly shorter for each operator in the augmented reality condition (< 0.001 for the resident, < 0.001 for the junior staff member and 0.027 for the senior staff member). The junior staff member had an improvement in accuracy of 1 mm using augmented reality (p 0.026); the other two participants showed no significant improvement regarding accuracy.

Conclusion: In this small series, it appears that the novel augmented reality system may improve the speed of CT-guided punctures in the phantom model compared to the free-hand procedure while maintaining a similar accuracy.