Radio Frequency Ablation Registration, Segmentation, and Fusion Tool

• Published in: IEEE journal of biomedical and health informatics 2006-07, Vol.10 (3), p.490-496
• Main Authors: McCreedy, E.S., Ruida Cheng, Hemler, P.F., Viswanathan, A., Wood, B.J., McAuliffe, M.J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ablation; Algorithms; Application software; Artificial Intelligence; Biomedical image processing; blood vessels; Fuses; Humans; Image analysis; Image Enhancement - methods; Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted - methods; image registration; Image segmentation; Imaging, Three-Dimensional - methods; liver; medical decision making; Pattern Recognition, Automated - methods; Probes; Process planning; Radio frequency; rendering (computer graphics); Software; Software tools; Subtraction Technique; Surgery, Computer-Assisted - methods; Tomography, X-Ray Computed - methods; User-Computer Interface; Visualization
• ISSN: 1089-7771; 2168-2194; 1558-0032; 2168-2208
• DOI: 10.1109/TITB.2006.872076

The radio frequency ablation segmentation tool (RFAST) is a software application developed using the National Institutes of Health's medical image processing analysis and visualization (MIPAV) API for the specific purpose of assisting physicians in the planning of radio frequency ablation (RFA) procedures. The RFAST application sequentially leads the physician through the steps necessary to register, fuse, segment, visualize, and plan the RFA treatment. Three-dimensional volume visualization of the CT dataset with segmented three dimensional (3-D) surface models enables the physician to interactively position the ablation probe to simulate burns and to semimanually simulate sphere packing in an attempt to optimize probe placement. This paper describes software systems contained in RFAST to address the needs of clinicians in planning, evaluating, and simulating RFA treatments of malignant hepatic tissue