Khoa Tran - A fluorolaser navigation system to guide linear surgical tool insertion

A fluorolaser navigation system to guide linear surgical tool insertion

                Fluorolaser navigation system is an improvement in surgical tool insertion’s accuracy. Basically, two fluorolaser planes (2D), which are created by two C-arms, make two lines on the object. The cross section of the two line is marked down by a bone marker. The C-arms transfer the data from their fluorolaser planes into a C-arm navigator which then processes the data and projects image of the object’s cutting planes—the fluorolaser planes cutting through the object. The experiment was carried out in order to test the accuracy of this method. Through the discussion and comparison of the article, the more image planes are used, the higher the accuracy turns out. They give an example of positioning a needle with a guidance angle and the error this method can make while it is carrying out the planning position. The researchers improved the error by recalculating the formula of angle position based on the error the method makes. As a result, the maximum error after 6 improved trials is 2.35mm and 2.63^o. Another problem this method runs into is the depth insertion accuracy. The article gives an image of a needle insertion into a soft tissue. The needle is positioned accurately with the fluorolaser navigation’s direction but not with the depth. However, besides those disadvantages, using the fluorolaser navigation system can help the patient to avoid the use of medical imaging technique such as X-ray computed tomography, X-ray fluoroscope, and magnetic resonance which can possibly cause bad site affects for the patient.

             I am interested in this article since this is a research of biomedical engineer in the bio-imaging aspect. This fluorolaser navigation system can help medical operation to be carried out with a higher accuracy and thus bringing a better result to the surgery. This is another contribution biomedical engineering has brought to the medical field specifically and to the world health in general.

http://link.springer.com.lib-ezproxy.tamu.edu:2048/article/10.1007/s11548-012-0743-0