3D Guidance medSAFE

Improvements in DC magnetic tracking for surgical navigation.

Jack Scully
Mark Schneider

DC tracking product line

Solbiati reports 94% success rate: over 1,000 lesions in 400 patients precisely targeted and fully ablated. Click to view: Power Point Presentation

The roots of ultrasound run deep. An Italian scientist in the late 18th-century theorized that bats navigate using sound, giving rise to basic principles of ultrasound. The transition to medical imaging came much later when, in the 1940s, a Naval Medical Research Institute physician demonstrated the detection of gallbladder stones using A-mode metal-flaw detectors and naval sonar. Medical ultrasound was born...

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Endoscopic imaging using optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been demonstrated as clinically useful in the assessment of human airways. These airways have a complex 3D structure, bending, tapering and bifurcating. Previously published 3D OCT reconstructions have not accounted for changes in the orientation and trajectory of the endoscopic probe as it moves through the airway during imaging...

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This article reports that Ascension's magnetic tracking of biopsy needle's tip helps physicians hit targets with pinpoint accuracy every time...
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www.radiologytoday.net

For years, physicians have wrestled with a well-known dilemma: how to avoid the risks posed by the radiation they use to ensure pinpoint accuracy in the operating room and interventional suite.
Many ignore contact with the fluoroscopy beam, looking the other way and hoping for
the best. Others wear lead aprons that leave the thyroid area, eyes, and hands exposed. A few cover themselves from head to toe...

To read more, go to:
www.radiologytoday.com

CIVCO Medical Solutions has introduced eTRAX, a breakthrough needle guidance system, expanding real-time image-guided navigation into a new dimension. Featuring an electromagnetic sensor embedded into the needle tip, eTRAX is an image-guidance tool kit which supports image fusion for ultrasound and enables real-time 3D instrument guidance in a variety of clinical settings. eTRAX acts as a real-time, 3D anatomical roadmap for the body, aiding in minimally invasive procedures...

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http://programonline.civco.com

This paper describes a novel method for improving the navigation and guidance of devices and catheters in electrophysiology and interventional cardiology procedures. using volumetric data fusion. The clinical workflow includes the acquisition and reconstruction of CT data from a C-Arm X-ray angiographic system and the real-time acquisition of volumetric ultrasound datasets with a new intracardiac real-time 3D ultrasound catheter...

To read more, go to:
www.springerlink.com

Diagnostic ultrasound (US) is among the most frequently used and valuable imaging modalities, also one of the most operator dependent imaging modalities. Accurate labeling and measuring in the ultrasound images is crucial for diagnostic and treatment purposes. The currently available ultrasound machines require manual labeling of images at acquisition, which is time consuming and has limited accuracy...

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A prototype of a new 4D in vivo dosimetry system capable of simultaneous real-time position monitoring and dose measurement has been developed. The radiation positioning system (RADPOS) is controlled by a computer and combines two technologies: MOSFET radiation detector coupled with an electromagnetic positioning device. Special software has been developed that allows sampling position and dose either manually or automatically in user-defined time intervals...

To read more , go to:
http:/medphys.org

Validation of CT-Video Registration for Guiding a Novel Ultrathin Bronchoscope to Peripheral Lung Nodules Using Electromagnetic Tracking.

The development of an ultrathin scanning fiber bronchoscope (SFB) at the University of Washington permits bronchoscopic examination of small peripheral airways inaccessible to conventional bronchoscopes. Due to the extensive branching in higher generation airways, a form of bronchoscopic guidance is needed. For accurate intraoperative localization of the SFB, we propose a hybrid approach, using electromagnetic tracking (EMT) and 2D/3D registration of bronchoscopic video images to a preoperative CT scan...

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http://adsabs.harvard.edu

Quantification of the Segmental Kinematics of Spontaneous Infant Movements.

This article introduces a method to capture the movements of the upper and the lower limb of infants. It uses an electromagnetic tracking system reliably calculate the segmental kinematics. Analysis of the spontaneous movements of infants is important e.g. in the context of the “General Movement Analysis”, which aims at the early diagnosis of motor dysfunctions. Due to special constraints regarding infant anatomy, previous approaches based on optical tracking could only gather position data of the infant’ segments, whereas with this method relative segment angles can be calculated...

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http://linkinghub.elsevier.com

The objective of this study was to analyze cervical range of motion, assessed over time by means of a digital inclinometer (EDI-320) and a three-dimensional electromagnetic tracking device.The maximum active cervical range of motion was assessed with two measurement devices in three sessions over time, with 6-week intervals. In total, 26 women and 24 men (mean age: 44.4, SD: 9.9) without known pathology of the cervical spine participated...

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http://linkinghub.elsevier.com

To read this paper, go to:
www.fss.uu.nl

Electromagnetic (EM) tracking systems have been successfully used for Surgical Navigation in ENT, cranial, and spine applications for several years. Catheter sized micro EM sensors have also been used in tightly controlled cardiac mapping and pulmonary applications. EM systems have the benefit over optical navigation systems of not requiring a line-of-sight between devices...

To read more, go to:
http://cat.inist.fr

To read more, go to:
www.nature.com/sc

Scarless surgery is a new and very promising technique that can mark a new era in surgical procedures. We have created and validated a navigation system for endoscopic and transgastric access interventions in in vivo pilot studies. The system provides augmented visual feedback and additional contextual information by establishing a correspondence between the real time endoscopic ultrasound image and a preoperative CT volume using rigid registration...

To read this paper, go to:
http://lmi.bwh.harward.edu

Arch Phys Med Rehabil, Vol 89, November 2008

The present case study assessed the feasibility of using an interactive gaming system, coupled with the manipulation of common objects, as a form of repetitive, task-specific movement therapy. Three adults with moderate chronic motor impairments of the fingers and hand participated: one 36-year-old man with an incomplete cervical spinal cord injury, one 60-year-old man with a left cortical cerebro-vascular accident, and one 38-year-old woman with left hemiplegic cerebral palsy...

To read more, go to:http://linkinghub.elsevier.com

Radiofrequency ablation has been applied to treat hepatocellular carcinoma, with
favorable therapeutic outcomes. Nevertheless, practitioners have approached radiofrequency
ablation with some reluctance due to the difficulty of identifying isoechoic tumors and
recurrent tumors. The aim of the present study is to investigate the efficacy of Real-time
Virtual Sonography to treat hepatocellular carcinoma difficult to detect by conventional ultrasonography.

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MICCAI 2007
Medical Image Computing and Computer- Assisted Intervention Conference
http://www.miccai.org

The fusion of 3D freehand ultrasound with CT and CTA has benefits for a variety of clinical applications, however a lot of manual work is usually required for correct registration. We developed new methods that allow one to simulate medical ultrasound from CT in real-time, reproducing the majority of ultrasonic imaging effects. The second novelty is a robust similarity measure that assesses the correlation of a combination of multiple signals extracted from CT with ultrasound, without knowing the influence of each signal...

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http://www.springerlink.com

Deformable registration of chest CT scans taken of a subject at various phases of respiration provide a direct measure of the spatially varying displacements that occur in the lung due to breathing. This respiratory motion was studied as part of the development of a CT-based guidance system for a new electromagnetically tracked ultrathin bronchoscope. Fifteen scans of an anesthesized pig were acquired at five distinct lung pressures between full expiration to full inspiration...

To read more, go to:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu

Study on the Clinical Application of Pulsed DC Magnetic Technology for Tracking of Intraoperative Head Motion During Frameless Stereotaxy

Tracking of post-registration head motion is one of the major problems in frameless stereotaxy. Various attempts in detecting and compensating for this phenomenon rely on a fixed reference device rigidly attached to the patient's head. However, most of such reference tools are either based on an invasive fixation technique or have physical limitations which allow mobility of the head only in a restricted range of motion after completion of the registration procedure.

To read more, go to:
http://www.head-face-med.com