Rigid neuroendoscope navigation system for minimally invasive surgery

This paper describes a high precision navigation system that helps neurosurgeons identify more easily the neuroendoscope´s tip location in the patient´s brain that can significantly reduce the length and increase the accuracy of minimally invasive procedures. It is an image-guided neurosurgery system that provides integrated information of preoperative 3-D medical volumes, intra-operative neuroendoscope 2-D images, position information of the endoscope and surgical tools. The system´s components include data acquisition, segmentation, multi-modal registration, 3-D surface and volume reconstruction, 3-D visualization, surgical simulation and integration of tracking systems. An articulated arm (digitizer) is used for automated registration of the 3-D model to the patient, then it is integrated with the system to dynamically localize surgical instruments and the patient´s head in the patient´s coordinate system. The visualization subsystem shows the position and orientation of the neuroendoscope´s tip in the 3-D model of preoperative Magnetic Resonance (MR) volume and in the three orthogonal (sagittal, cronoal and axial) MR slices. The system´s components and clinical applications are described