Cochlear implants must be inserted carefully to avoid damaging the delicate anatomical structures of the inner ear. This has motivated several approaches to improve the safety and efficacy of electrode array insertion by automating the process with specialized robotic or manual insertion tools. When such tools are used, they must be positioned at the entry point to the cochlea and aligned with the desired entry vector. This paper presents an image guidance system capable of accurately positioning a cochlear implant insertion tool. An optical tracking system localizes the insertion tool in physical space while a graphical user interface incorporates this with patient- specific anatomical data to provide error information to the surgeon in real-time. Guided by this interface, novice users successfully aligned the tool with an mean accuracy of 0.31 mm.

Date Published: 3 March 2017
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 10135, Medical Imaging 2017: Image-Guided Procedures, Robotic Interventions, and Modeling, 101350O (3 March 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2256043

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10135:
Medical Imaging 2017: Image-Guided Procedures, Robotic Interventions, and Modeling
Robert J. Webster III; Baowei Fei, Editor(s)