Image synthesis of small semiconductor gamma camera and optical camera for identifying sentinel lymph nodes in radioguided surgery

We have developed a method that combines a small semiconductor gamma camera with an optical camera to synthesize the two kinds of images and help surgeons to easily identify sentinel lymph nodes on the gastric surface in the cancer resection surgery. The proposed method includes some key techniques such as distortion correction of the optical camera image, distance estimation between the camera head and the object surface using a laser and the optical camera, and perspective transformation of the gamma camera image to fuse with the optical camera image. The method and preliminary experimental results with a prototype setup are presented