Intraoperative Visualization of Anatomical Targets in Retinal Surgery

Certain surgical procedures require a high degree of precise manual control within a very restricted area. Retinal surgeries are part of this group of procedures. During vitreoretinal surgery, the surgeon must visualize, using a microscope, an area spanning a few hundreds of microns in diameter and manually correct the potential pathology using direct contact, free hand techniques. In addition, the surgeon must find an effective compromise between magnification, depth perception, field of view, and clarity of view. Pre-operative images are used to locate interventional targets, and also to assess and plan the surgical procedure. This paper proposes a method of fusing information contained in pre-operative imagery, such as fundus and OCT images, with intra-operative video to increase accuracy in finding the target areas. We describe methods for maintaining, in real-time, registration with anatomical features and target areas using image processing. This registration allows us to produce information enhanced displays that ensure that the retinal surgeon is always in visual contact with his/her area of interest.