Computation of liver deformations with finite element model

Abstract

The video stream of the liver surface images from the laparoscope is the only visual information during the minimally invasive surgery (MIS). It is therefore quite difficult for surgeons to know some crucial internal surgical information, such as the locations of the tumor or the main blood vessels. Since there is no feasible scanning instrument available at this time, computational liver model seems to be the proper solution. In this paper, a system is proposed to calculate the deformations of liver tissue along with its internal structures during the MIS. Verified with a simulation and an ex vivo experiment, the error of calculated deformation can reach 0.3 mm and 1.36 mm respectively.