Surgical navigation system including patient tracker with removable registration appendage
Inventors
Sukovic, Predrag • Rakic, Miodrag • Bertolina, James A.
Assignees
Interested in licensing this patent?
MTEC can help explore whether this patent might be available for licensing for your application.
Publication Number
US-7556428-B2
Publication Date
2009-07-07
Expiration Date
Abstract
A surgical navigation system includes a CT scanner that takes a plurality of x-ray images of a patient. A patient tracker including locators is attached to the patient, and a registration appendage is removably secured to the patient tracker in a known position and orientation. The registration appendage includes radio-opaque markers arranged in a predetermined geometric pattern. The registration appendage is viewable in a CT scan in situations where the locators of the patient tracker are outside of a field of view of the CT scanner.
Core Innovation
A surgical navigation system is described in which a CT scanner performs a CT scan to generate a three dimensional CT image. A patient tracker is positioned on a patient including a plurality of locators in a fixed orientation, and the patient tracker is attached to a headband. The system includes an appendage removably secured to the patient tracker.
The appendage includes a plurality of markers in a fixed orientation that are viewable in the three dimensional CT image. The plurality of markers are located over a face of the patient, and the markers are positioned so that they are visible in CT images even when the locators are outside a field of view.
The visible markers enable repeatable registration of current and prior 3D CT images, including a full-scan 3D CT image and collimated volume-of-interest 3D CT scans where the locators may be outside a collimated field of view. The system optionally uses a computer controlled CT with reconstruction and a display of relative positions, and it performs registration using the markers to relate the first and second three dimensional CT images.
Claims Coverage
The independent claims cover three aspects: a CT-based surgical navigation system with a headband-mounted tracker and a removable marker appendage positioned over the patient’s face, a method of tracking using the same marker-and-tracker arrangement in CT image space, and a system variant adding the appendage placement between the patient tracker and the patient’s feet. Across the independent claims, the inventive features are anchored on fixed orientation of locators and markers and on CT-visibility and registration of face-located markers.
Ct-based surgical navigation with face-located marker appendage
A surgical navigation system with a CT scanner that generates a three dimensional CT image, a patient tracker attached to a headband with a plurality of locators in a fixed orientation, and a removably secured appendage carrying a plurality of markers in a fixed orientation that are viewable in the three dimensional CT image and located over a face of the patient.
Ct-based patient tracking using fixed-orientation locators and face-located markers
A method of tracking a patient by positioning a patient tracker attached to a headband with a plurality of locators, removably attaching an appendage having a plurality of markers wherein the markers and locators each have fixed orientation, and performing a CT scan to generate a three dimensional CT image in which the plurality of markers are visible and located over a face of the patient.
Marker appendage placed between headband tracker and feet
A surgical navigation system with a CT scanner generating a three dimensional CT image, a patient tracker on a patient including a headband and a plurality of locators in fixed orientation, and a removably secured appendage with a plurality of markers in fixed orientation viewable in the three dimensional CT image, located over a face of the patient, wherein the appendage is located between the patient tracker and feet of the patient.
Overall, the claim coverage is directed to surgical navigation and CT-based tracking where a headband-mounted tracker with fixed-orientation locators is paired with a removable appendage carrying fixed-orientation markers that are visible in the generated three dimensional CT image over the patient’s face, with an additional spatial constraint in one independent system variant placing the appendage between the patient tracker and the patient’s feet.
Stated Advantages
Repeatable registration of current and prior 3D CT images, including full-scan and collimated volume-of-interest CT scans.
Documented Applications
Surgical navigation using CT image registration for current and prior three dimensional CT images, including use with collimated volume-of-interest scans.
Interested in licensing this patent?