A Mixed Reality Assisted Preoperative Neurosurgical Planning

Description

Surgery often involves intricate processes which are known to be complex and lengthy Pre-operative planning is one of the most important parts of the surgery, from which surgeons estimate the expected outcome and identify potential risks at an early_ stage before any intraoperative procedures are conducted. Neurosurgical planning is extremely important in brain surgery. It allows more secure removal of brain tumor, avoiding procedural pitfalls, and reducing resection of nearby brain tissues. The complex nature of neuroanatomy often makes it difficult to establish a very precise spatial relationship between diagnostic imaging and target anatomy. Neurosurgeons 。ftenneed to create an "X-ray beam" through the anatomical limits to avoid unnecessary manipulation or inadvertent injury to vascular or neural structures. This task is particularly difficult because there are no or little anatomical landmarks in neurosurgeries. Mixed reality (MR), combining virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) interfaces, can provide anatomical models and preoperative planning contextually comparable with a real surgical scenario which can help neurosurgeons to overcome the complexity of anatomical structures by practicing surgery in advance using head-mounted display (HMO). This project aims to present a new reliable mixed reality (MR)-based preoperative planning and training platform that includes a 30 representation of the surgical area, preoperative mapping of the deep learning-based brain segmentation, and interactive virtual surgery platform for training and education. The proposed MR application enables an ergonomic and intuitive implementation of preoperative planning and can be a suitable alternative to support neurosurgical tasks for Hong Kong.