Ultrasound Image Guided and Mixed Reality-Based Surgical System With Real-Time Soft Tissue Deformation Computing for Robotic Cervical Pedicle Screw Placement

Objective: Cervical pedicle screw (CPS) placement surgery remains technically demanding due to the complicated anatomy with neurovascular structures. State-of-the-art surgical navigation or robotic systems still suffer from the problem of hand-eye coordination and soft tissue deformation. In this study, we aim at tracking the intraoperative soft tissue deformation and constructing a virtual-physical fusion surgical scene, and integrating them into the robotic system for CPS placement surgery. Methods: Firstly, we propose a real-time deformation computation method based on the prior shape model and intraoperative partial information acquired from ultrasound images. According to the generated posterior shape, the structure representation of deformed target tissue gets updated continuously. Secondly, a hand tremble compensation method is proposed to improve the accuracy and robustness of the virtual-physical calibration procedure, and a mixed reality based surgical scene is further constructed for CPS placement surgery. Thirdly, we integrate the soft tissue deformation method and virtual-physical fusion method into our previously proposed surgical robotic system, and the surgical workflow for CPS placement surgery is introduced. Results: We conducted phantom and animal experiments to evaluate the feasibility and accuracy of the proposed system. Our system yielded a mean surface distance error of 1.52 +/- 0.43 mm for soft tissue deformation computing, and an average distance deviation of 1.04 +/- 0.27 mm for CPS placement. Conclusion: Results demonstrate that our system involves tremendous clinical application potential. Significance: Our proposed system promotes the efficiency and safety of the CPS placement surgery.

Automated summary

This study focuses on addressing the technical challenges in cervical pedicle screw (CPS) placement surgery through soft tissue deformation tracking and virtual-physical fusion surgical scene construction, aiming to improve surgical efficiency and safety.