Applying image-guidance to an electronically-controlled surgical drill can prevent damage to patients' anatomy during resection. A system is presented that disables the drill when it nears pre-defined critical patient anatomy. The system consists of a tracking system, image-guidance software, and drill-control circuit. The software was developed in C++ with the help of the Image-Guided Surgery Toolkit, and was designed to track tools based on input from a MicronTracker (Claron Tech, Toronto, Ontario) tracking system. The system registers physical to image space using fiducial markers rigidly attached to the patient, tracks the drill, and automatically disables the drill when close to restricted regions. A coordinate reference frame is used for all physical acquisitions. Visual feedback of the tool's position in image space is provided during tracking. Two tests were performed to determine the feasibility of the system. Virtual restricted regions were defined inside a phantom, and an operator attempted to drill the phantom with the help of the application. No feedback was provided to the user except for the automatic disablement of the drill by the application when close to a restricted region. In the first test, the drill was disabled at 0.74 ± 0.46 mm from the restricted region and entered 5.3% of the surface area of the restricted region. In the second test, the drill was disabled 1.3 ± 0.69 mm from the restricted region and entered the restricted region 8.5% of the time. We conclude that the system shows promise and further testing should be conducted.

Date Published: 13 March 2009
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 7261, Medical Imaging 2009: Visualization, Image-Guided Procedures, and Modeling, 72610N (13 March 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.813457

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