Authors: Christian Schumann Jennifer Bieberstein Stefan Braunewell Matthias Niethammer HeinzOtto Peitgen
Publish Date: 2011/06/09
Volume: 7, Issue: 2, Pages: 191-197
Abstract
Percutaneous imageguided interventions such as radiofrequency ablation or biopsy are using needleshaped instruments which have to be inserted into a target area without penetrating any vital structure The established planning workflow is based on viewing 2D slices of a preinterventional CT or MR scan However access paths not parallel to the axial plane are often necessary For such complicated cases the planning process is challenging and time consuming if solely based on 2D slices To overcome these limitations while keeping the wellestablished workflow we propose a visualization method that highlights less suited paths directly in the 2D visualizations with which the radiologist is familiarBased on a user defined target point and segmentation masks of relevant risk structures a risk structure map is computed using GPU accelerated volume rendering and projected onto the 2D slices This visualization supports the user in defining safe linear access paths by selecting a second point directly in the 2D image slicesIn an evaluation for 20 liver radiofrequency ablation cases 3 experienced radiologists stated for 55 of the cases that the visualization supported the access path choice The visualization support was rated with an average mark of 22 For 2 of the 3 radiologists a significant reduction of the planning duration by 54 and 50 was observed
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