Augmented vision for minimally invasive abdominal cancer surgery

We present ongoing research toward development of a general software/hardware tool to improve instrument placement in moving organs during minimally invasive abdominal surgery. Cancer tumor ablation and biopsy in abdominal organs can be performed today by minimally invasive surgical procedures. A major difficulty in these procedures is the movement of organs due to patient respiration and the shift induced by the surgical instrument. The main objective of this research is to solve, in real time and without user intervention, the preoperative/intraoperative 3-D/2-D image registration problem, and the nondistracting display of the repositioned 3-D dataset. We describe our methodology applied to the design of a tool for prostate cryosurgery. Among other benefits, use of this tool will increase surgeon confidence and improve surgery outcomes, leading to cost reduction.