Registered, Sensor-Integrated Virtual Reality for Surgical Applications

Image guidance is a technique that often uses virtual reality to provide accurate localization and real-time surgical navigation. Combining image guidance with a biosensor based on Raman spectroscopy, a powerful laser-based analysis technique, would provide a surgeon both a diagnosis of tissue being analyzed (e.g. cancer) and localization information displayed within an imaging modality of choice. A virtual reality-based presentation of this type of mutual and registered information could lead to faster diagnoses and enable more accurate tissue resections. For our system, a portable Raman probe was attached to a passively articulated mechanical arm and used to scan and classify objects within a phantom skull. We discuss the implementation of the integrated system, its accuracy, its visualization techniques, and the future steps for its development and eventual application.