Augmented Endovascular Surgery

Endovascular surgery is a medical specialty of minimally invasive procedures which treats pathologies affecting the blood vessels relying on the use of catheters, guide-wires and other endovascular devices.
During the intervention, the clinician relies entirely on fluoroscopic images, obtained through a X-ray beam, allowing to display in real time the anatomy of the patient, the current position of the catheter and its displacements within the blood vessels.
Despite the evident benefits of this technique, the exposure of both clinicians and patients to cumulative doses of ionizing radiation is an important issue. A contrast medium – which is usually allergenic and nephrotoxic – needs to be injected regularly in the vascular system in order to visualize blood vessels through which the instruments are inserted.
In addition, fluoroscopic images are characterized by a lack of depth perception and by a poor quality of visualization, due to overlaying structures within the grey-scale image.
To overcome all the above limitations, we propose an augmented scenario in which 2D fluoroscopic images are combined with a 3D real-time simulation of the catheter navigation within the blood vessels.
The main aim of this project is to find the best fitting method for the implementation of such simulation (physics-based simulation, stochastic filtering..) and then eventually integrating it within an operating room.