Current surgical navigation systems may assist in providing live guidance, but typically use pins and clamps to hold a patient's head firmly in place, which carries the risk of complications and can prolongA team of researchers at the Imaging for Surgery, Therapy, and Radiology Labs at Johns Hopkins University is working on a less invasive solution that doesn't require additional equipment or expose patients to the extraor long scan times typically associated with live imaging.
The researchers have coined the term"augmented endoscopy" for this highly accurate, state-of-the-art method of live surgical visualization. Through a series of preclinical experiments, they demonstrated that this method is more than 16 times faster than previous computer vision techniques while still maintaining submillimeter accuracy.
The research team is currently collaborating with neurosurgeons at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in a clinical study with the goal of refining and validating their method for use in real operating rooms. The researchers are also expanding their approach by applyingand machine learning methods to further improve the speed and precision of future iterations of their algorithm.