A concept for a novel surgical navigation system

A new concept for surgical navigation in minimally-invasive interventions is presented, which allows an enhanced orientation of the surgeon with reduced cost and system complexity. The navigation system takes advantage of recorded image data, including the preoperatively computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) data, which are registered and segmented in order to obtain relevant biological markers, as well as the intraoperative camera data. A device for absolute positioning, included in the laparoscope and consisting of an acoustic indoor localization with a supporting inertial measurement unit (IMU), fuses these different navigation data for reliable 6 degree-of-freedom (DOF) position and orientation estimation. With those navigation information of the laparoscope, the landmarks of the preoperative data are localized on the intraoperative camera images via augmented reality and thus the site of the relevant features (e. g., a carcinoma) is determined.