Technologies for image guided therapy

图像引导疗法使用医学图像、3D位置传感设备和基于计算机的导航系统来改善医生治疗患者的方式。图像，如核磁共振扫描，可以在介入程序（如手术或导管术）之前使用，在3D计算机模拟中仔细规划程序。当平面图与治疗室中的患者对齐时，导航系统可以感知患者和器械的位置，因此医生可以在图像上看到器械的“覆盖”，从而允许医生通过非常小的切口进入深层解剖结构。额外的医学图像，如超声波，也可以获得并集成到导航屏幕。这给医生提供了强有力的信息，帮助他们更有效地治疗病人。本研究旨在改善影像引导治疗的两个方面：为医生提供立体的医学影像，将规划影像与实时影像对齐，将不同影像融合为一个易于使用的整体。这些技术将使医生能够显著改善治疗方法，并可能引领腹腔镜手术的下一次革命：“无疤痕”手术，利用自然开口进入身体，因此不需要皮肤切口。

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.