Abstract
The advancement of measurement technology inside operation room including medical imaging and diagnosis and the combination between these technologies and computer technology leads the progress of navigation surgery, which is safer and more precise surgery; this type of a surgical procedure is mainly applicable to neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, and otolaryngologic surgery. For example, fetal endoscopy can be safely performed through a surgical procedure based on the navigation technology; this procedure enhances the surgeon's field of view. However, a real-time and high-quality imagining and visualization technology is required to perform surgeries involving the treatment of soft tissue, such as fetal surgery. In our work, we developed a real-time updated navigation system for performing abdominal endoscopy including fetal surgery, using a high-speed transfer interface of a real-time 3D ultrasound imaging system and by carrying out high-speed computing using a multi-core processor system. The evaluation results of our system showed that our system was able to detect a position error of up to approximately 2.78 mm, and it was able to visualize and process data after every 200-500 ms. Further, we developed a new method for sensing the distance between the organs and surgical instruments. The evaluation results of our navigation system show that our system is able to avoid collision between the organs and surgical instruments during endoscopic procedures.
