Section: New Results

Radiation-less guidance during interventional radiology procedures

Significant changes have taken place over the past 20 years in medicine with the development of minimally-invasive procedures. While surgery evolved towards laparoscopy for instance, interventional radiology has become another alternative for many pathologies. Yet, some limitations remain: for percutaneous procedures, soft tissue motion, either due to breathing or deformation induced by the needle, changes the location of the target. When using image guidance, or robotic control, this remains a major obstacle. Regarding catheter-based interventions, the lack of 3D information, and extensive use of X-ray imaging to visualize the path to be followed, are among the main issues. We propose to address these different problems by developing an advanced navigation system which relies on a combination of real-time simulation and information extracted from intra-operative images to assess the current position of the needle. Such a method would have direct applications in pre-operative planning, per-operative guidance, and control for robotics. Our approach will combine advanced modeling of the device, soft tissue deformation, tissue-tool interactions, and planning algorithms 11 .