Preoperative planning combined with image-guidance has shown promise towards increasing the accuracy of liver resection procedures. The purpose of this study was to validate one such preoperative planning tool for four patients undergoing hepatic resection. Preoperative computed tomography (CT) images acquired before surgery were used to identify tumor margins and to plan the surgical approach for resection of these tumors. Surgery was then performed with intraoperative digitization data acquire by an FDA approved image-guided liver surgery system (Pathfinder Therapeutics, Inc., Nashville, TN). Within 5-7 days after surgery, post-operative CT image volumes were acquired. Registration of data within a common coordinate reference was achieved and preoperative plans were compared to the postoperative volumes. Semi-quantitative comparisons are presented in this work and preliminary results indicate that significant liver regeneration/hypertrophy in the postoperative CT images may be present post-operatively. This could challenge pre/post operative CT volume change comparisons as a means to evaluate the accuracy of preoperative surgical plans.

Date Published: 13 March 2009
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 7261, Medical Imaging 2009: Visualization, Image-Guided Procedures, and Modeling, 726122 (13 March 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.813771

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