Past work has shown that guidance systems help improve both the navigation through airways and final biopsy of regions of interest via bronchoscopy. We have previously proposed an image-based bronchoscopic guidance system. The system, however, has three issues that arise during navigation: 1) sudden disorienting changes can occur in endoluminal views; 2) more feedback could be afforded during navigation; and 3) the system's graphical user interface (GUI) lacks a convenient interface for smooth navigation between bifurcations. In order to alleviate these issues, we present an improved navigation system. The improvements offer the following: 1) an enhanced visual presentation; 2) smooth navigation; 3) an interface for handling registration errors; and 4) improved bifurcation-point identification. The improved navigation system thus provides significant ergonomic and navigational advantages over the previous system.

Date Published: 13 March 2009
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 7261, Medical Imaging 2009: Visualization, Image-Guided Procedures, and Modeling, 72612J (13 March 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.811142

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7261:
Medical Imaging 2009: Visualization, Image-Guided Procedures, and Modeling
Michael I. Miga; Kenneth H. Wong, Editor(s)