Tissue deformation and shape models in image-guided interventions: a discussion paper

This paper promotes the concept of active models in image-guided interventions. We outline the limitations of the rigid body assumption in image-guided interventions and describe how intraoperative imaging provides a rich source of information on spatial location of anatomical structures and therapy devices, allowing a preoperative plan to be updated during an intervention. Soft tissue deformation and variation from an atlas to a particular individual can both be determined using non-rigid registration. Established methods using free-form deformations have a very large number of degrees of freedom. Three examples of deformable models – motion models, biomechanical models and statistical shape models – are used to illustrate how prior information can be used to restrict the number of degrees of freedom of the registration algorithm and thus provide active models for image-guided interventions. We provide preliminary results from applications for each type of model.