Surgery – Diagnostic testing – Detecting nuclear – electromagnetic – or ultrasonic radiation
Reexamination Certificate
2001-07-03
2004-02-10
Merlader, Eleni Mantis (Department: 3737)
Surgery
Diagnostic testing
Detecting nuclear, electromagnetic, or ultrasonic radiation
C600S427000, C600S407000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06690964
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a visualization device for the visualization of data that relate to a medical intervention at a patient, as well as to a method for the visualization of data that relate to a medical intervention at a patient.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In medical or surgical interventions, the position and orientation of surgical instruments that, for example, can be equipped with sensors of a navigation system for determining the position and orientation can be displayed as medical image data during the surgical intervention.
In specific fields of employment, there is, the necessity of employing a number of surgical instruments that are intra-corporeally guided in the patient and that cannot be visually tracked as a group by the surgeon. Such a situation occurs, for example, in some gastroenterological laparoscopy interventions wherein a surgical instrument introduced into the abdominal cavity should be guided to the same position at which an endoscope introduced into the colon is located. It is not easy for the surgeon to accomplish this since there is no visual contact with the guided instruments.
The document, “Medical Procedures and Apparatus Using Intrabody Probes” (WO97/29709), discloses the employment of a number of sensors for the visualization of the surgical instruments in detail. The user interface for visualization of the instrument positions (with the assistance of one or more monitors and with the assistance of “Virtual Reality Devices”) is also disclosed therein; the instruments are thereby visualized on a planar computer display.
A disadvantage of this arrangement is that the visualization of the surgical instruments is not especially intuitive on a planar computer display. Moreover, it is inconvenient for the surgeon to constantly change the direction of view between the computer display and the operation field during the intervention. Additionally, the spatial conditions in an operating room are very constricted and therefore a minimization of components (for example, avoiding the presence of the computer display in the indicated case) is desirable.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,694,142 discloses a solution wherein the surgeon views his operating field through a semi-transparent pane, with the medical image data are displayed on into this semi-transparent pane and thus are superimposed on the view of the operation field.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide a visualization device and a method for the visualization of data that relate to a medical or, respectively, surgical intervention at a patient which achieves the following:
The position and orientation of instruments with which there is no visual contact are visualized.
The position and orientation of a number of instruments with which there is no visual contact are visualized relative to one another.
The visualization is undertaken such that the surgeon need not avert his or her eyes from the operation field during the intervention.
The visualization ensues relative to the patient (i.e. in the patient coordinate system and not in a coordinate that is specific to the image data).
This object is achieved by a visualization device for the visualization of data that relate to a medical intervention at a patient wherein the visualization device projects the data onto the body surface of the patient, for example by light projection.
This object is also achieved by a method for the visualization of data that relate to a medical intervention at a patient, whereby the data are projected onto the body surface of the patient.
According to the present invention, the data are projected onto the body surface in the region of the intervention. In a gastroenterological, laparoscopic intervention, the projection ensues, for example, onto the upper abdomen of the patient. The surgeon thus can acquire operation-related data without having to avert his or her eyes from the operation field.
Further, components such as for example, the computer display are eliminated.
In an embodiment of the present invention, data that relate to the position and orientation of one or more intracorporeally guided instruments are projected onto the body surface of the patient.
These data are advantageously projected onto the body surface of the patient as geometrical shape or figure, for example a circle and/or as arrow, in a specific relationship to the position of the surgical instrument, with the geometrical shape moving on the body surface of the patient together with the movement of the instruments. During the intervention, the surgeon thus can track the position and orientation of one or more instruments with which he or she has no direct visual contact without having to avert his or her eyes from the operation field. The orientation can, for example, be presented by the arrow direction.
The problem of bringing a number of instruments together (for example, endoscope and surgical instrument), with which there is no direct visual contact, is reduced in this procedure to the superimposition of geometrical shapes that are projected onto the body surface of the patient.
According to the present invention, the projection of the position and orientation of the surgical instruments or of the geometrical shapes can be implemented in the patient coordinate system, i.e., the position and orientation are projected exactly onto the location of the body surface under which the surgical instrument is in fact located.
A projection of the geometrical shape exactly perpendicularly above the position of the surgical instrument in the body of the patient would thereby also be conceivable, in which case the instrument positions projected onto the body surface of the patient always lie on a vertical connecting line between the actual and the projected position of the surgical instrument. Given this type of projection, however, the point of view or the line of vision of the intervening surgeon is not addressed.
In order to address the line of vision of the surgeon, the geometrical shape is projected onto the body surface at an angle relative to the position of the surgical instrument in viewing direction of the intervening surgeon. This means that the location of the projection of the geometrical shape on the body surface is located on the connecting line between the actual spatial position of the surgical instrument and the line of vision of the surgeon onto the instrument. In order to be able to define the starting point of this line of vision of the surgeon, one or more reference markings are attached to or in the proximity of the head of the surgeon, the spatial positions of the one or more reference markings being respectively communicated to a navigation computer that also determines the positions and or orientations of the surgical instruments before renewed projected of the positions of the instruments. The head of the surgeon thus is continuously tracked, for example with a stereo camera, and the position thereof is thus acquired.
For example, one or more cross-shaped reference markings are attached for this purpose to the operation cap of the surgeon, these being continuously detected by two cameras (stereo cameras) or when needed. In this way, the coordinates of the head of the surgeon are determined.
In order, in addition to the head position, to also be able to determine the orientation of the head and, thus, the viewing direction thereof, a number of reference markings attached to the head or to the operating cap are detected. Subsequently, the position of the instrument is projected onto the body surface of the patient as the intersection between the position of the reference markings at the head of the surgeon and the actual instrument position, which is established by a sensor of a navigation system at the surgical instrument.
Since only a two-dimensional visualization of the instrument position or of the corresponding geometrical shape on the body surface of the patient is possible, the third spatial dimension, i.e. the perpendicular dist
Bieger Johannes
Graumann Rainer
Rahn Norbert
Merlader Eleni Mantis
Schiff & Hardin & Waite
LandOfFree
Method and device for visualization of positions and... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Method and device for visualization of positions and..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Method and device for visualization of positions and... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3349052