Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is a common surgical technique whereby patients are treated for their illness while inflicting minimal trauma. One of the procedures that is often performed using MIS is the removal of malignant tumors from the bladder. With this type of procedure the operator enters the bladder of the patient using an endoscope, locates and then removes one or more tumors using a small knife attached to the tip of the endoscope.
A particularly difficult situation can occur when multiple tumors are present. In this case the removal of one tumor can cause blood to flow and create a murky endoscope image. This makes it more difficult for a surgeon to find the remaining tumors and it raises the chance that tumors may be overlooked.
To assist the surgeon during this kind of procedure PS-Tech is developing an augmented reality in-patient navigation system. The idea of this system is to track the position and orientation of the endoscope using the Personal Space Tracker (PST), an optical tracking system. Using this system, at any time the exact location of the tip of the endoscope is known. This allows operators to locate and mark 3D positions within the bladder and find them back based on navigational instructions given by the system.
