ArthroNav: Computer assisted navigation system for orthopedic surgery using endoscopic images

Abstract

In the future, medicine will increasingly rely in Computer Aided Surgery and Diagnosis, hence techniques to extract information from endoscopic images of human-body cavities will be crucial. The ArthroNav project main goal is to process the endoscopic video in order to improve practioner's perception and navigation skill inside the knee joint. Some navigation systems for CAS (Computer Aided Surgery) based on image processing techniques have been already proposed in the literature. However, most of them employ methods designed for conventional cameras and do not account with the special optical arrangement of the endoscopic lens. We intend to adapt/design new computer vision techniques invariant to the numerous challenges that endoscopic video places. The usefulness of developing algorithms for endoscopic images is not limited to Computer Assisted Orthopedic Surgery. Many other medical fields can benefit from the research herein proposed. The processing of endoscopic video can be equally used in other minimally invasive procedures like nose surgery, neurosurgery, and cardiac surgery.