Technologies for image guided therapy

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Image-guided therapy uses medical images, 3D position sensing devices, and computer-based navigation systems to improve the ways in which physicians treat patients. Images, such as MRI scans, can be used before an interventional procedure (such as surgery or catheterization) to carefully plan the procedure in a 3D computer simulation. When the plan is aligned with the patient in the treatment room, the navigation system can sense where the patient and the instruments are, so that the physician can see an "overlay" of the instruments on the images, allowing the physician to access deep anatomical structures through very small incisions. Additional medical images, such as ultrasound, can also be obtained and integrated into the navigation screens. This gives physicians powerful information that helps them to treat patients more effectively.This research is aimed at improving two aspects of image-guided therapy: providing physicians with stereoscopic views of the medical images, and aligning the planning images with the real-time images to fuse the different images into an easy-to-use whole. These techniques will allow physicians to significantly improve treatments and may usher in the next revolution in laparoscopic surgery: "scar-less" surgery that uses natural openings into the body and thus needs no skin incisions.