Spotlight-based 3D Instrument Guidance for Retinal Surgery

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel 3D instrument guidance method for retinal surgery using spotlight projection in microscope images, enhancing surgical precision and safety.

Contribution

The paper presents a new spotlight projection-based 3D guidance technique for retinal surgery, including modeling, calibration, and real-time tracking with a robot-assisted system.

Findings

Achieves 0.5 mm tip-to-surface accuracy

Demonstrates feasibility with a robot-integrated light fiber

Validates on phantom retina with promising results

Abstract

Retinal surgery is a complex activity that can be challenging for a surgeon to perform effectively and safely. Image guided robot-assisted surgery is one of the promising solutions that bring significant surgical enhancement in treatment outcome and reduce the physical limitations of human surgeons. In this paper, we demonstrate a novel method for 3D guidance of the instrument based on the projection of spotlight in the single microscope images. The spotlight projection mechanism is firstly analyzed and modeled with a projection on both a plane and a sphere surface. To test the feasibility of the proposed method, a light fiber is integrated into the instrument which is driven by the Steady-Hand Eye Robot (SHER). The spot of light is segmented and tracked on a phantom retina using the proposed algorithm. The static calibration and dynamic test results both show that the proposed method can easily archive 0.5 mm of tip-to-surface distance which is within the clinically acceptable accuracy for intraocular visual guidance.