A low cost and accurate guidance system for laparoscopic surgery

Abstract

In this paper we present a guiding system for laparoscopic surgery which tracks in real time the laparoscopic tools and registers at 10 Hz a preoperative CT/MRI model of the patient. To help surgeons, this system provides simultaneously three kinds of supplementary information. It displays the relative positions of the laparoscopic tools and the 3D patient model. It provides two external views of the patient on which his 3D model and tool positions are superimposed. Finally, it displays an endoscopic view augmented with the 3D patient model. Contrary to most systems for laparoscopic surgery, this one is low cost (one PC, two cameras and a printer are necessary) and we have rigorously validated its tracking accuracy in simulated clinical conditions (tracking accuracy of an instrument tip close to 1.5 mm, and endoscopic overlay error under 1.0 mm). Besides, our system accuracy is comparable with commercial system's ones. Eventually, experiments on an abdominal phantom with surgeons demonstrate its usefulness. We plan to realize our first experiments on patients in a few months.