Towards Seamless Integration of Magnetic Tracking into Fluoroscopy-guided Interventions

The 2D projective nature of X-ray radiography presents significant limitations in fluoroscopy-guided interventions, particularly the loss of depth perception and prolonged radiation exposure. Integrating magnetic trackers into these workflows is promising; however, it remains challenging and under-e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2024-11
Main Authors: Xing, Shuwei, Mirzaei, Mateen, Xia, Wenyao, Ahmed-Fazal, Inaara, Pardasani, Utsav, Jarayathne, Uditha, Illsley, Scott, Leandro Cardarelli Leite, Fenster, Aaron, Peters, Terry M, Chen, Elvis C S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Aluminum
Fluoroscopy
Navigation
Pose estimation
Radiation effects
Real time
Space perception
Tracking
Workflow
X-ray radiography
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Summary:The 2D projective nature of X-ray radiography presents significant limitations in fluoroscopy-guided interventions, particularly the loss of depth perception and prolonged radiation exposure. Integrating magnetic trackers into these workflows is promising; however, it remains challenging and under-explored in current research and practice. To address this, we employed a radiolucent magnetic field generator (FG) prototype as a foundational step towards seamless magnetic tracking (MT) integration. A two-layer FG mounting frame was designed for compatibility with various C-arm X-ray systems, ensuring smooth installation and optimal tracking accuracy. To overcome technical challenges, including accurate C-arm pose estimation, robust fluoro-CT registration, and 3D navigation, we proposed the incorporation of external aluminum fiducials without disrupting conventional workflows. Experimental evaluation showed no clinically significant impact of the aluminum fiducials and the C-arm on MT accuracy. Our fluoro-CT registration demonstrated high accuracy (mean projection distance approxiamtely 0.7 mm, robustness (wide capture range), and generalizability across local and public datasets. In a phantom targeting experiment, needle insertion error was between 2 mm and 3 mm, with real-time guidance using enhanced 2D and 3D navigation. Overall, our results demonstrated the efficacy and clinical applicability of the MT-assisted approach. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to integrate a radiolucent FG into a fluoroscopy-guided workflow.
ISSN:2331-8422