Photo-registration: a novel method for patient registration prior to electromagnetic navigation

Surgical navigation is increasingly used for challenging ENT operations in order to reduce potential complications. To enable the use of navigation, patient registration is conducted to define the patient position relative to the pre-operative imaging data. The most commonly used registration method is tactile registration, where referencing anatomical landmarks are touched with a navigated instrument. With tactile registration, the skin is manipulated, which could affect accuracy. Novel photo-registration technology allows touchless registration using multiple camera scanning and is hypothesized to be more accurate due to the avoidance of skin manipulation and a faster registration process.

The current study evaluates a novel photo-based method for registration of imaging data for surgical navigation in an in vitro setting. Its efficacy was compared with the standard tactile-registration of an electromagnetic navigation system.

The current study is an in-vitro study comparing tactile and photo-registration in a cranial model. The model was registered using tactile and photo-registration methods and a navigated instrument was placed at different defined points within the model. The deviations at different locations were captured for each registration method using the length feature within the software, which measures the respective distance between the position of the instrument shown and the target anatomical landmark.

The accuracy of photo-registration tends to be slightly better.

In terms of accuracy, photo-registration does not seem to be inferior to tactile-registration, while it appears to be superior in terms of duration.

Further in vivo studies with appropriate sample size are our next step

Poster-PDF A-1709.PDF

Publication History

Article published online:
10 June 2020