Master Thesis: Surgeon monitoring during C-arm based pre-clinical study

Thesis by:
Advisor: Dr. Ulrich Eck
Supervision by: Prof. Dr. Nassir Navab
Due date:

Abstract

We search a master student to work on a preclinical study involving a new setup proposing an overlay of x-ray image with video [1,2]. The preclinical study will see participants (expert surgeons) perform facet joint injection [3] with our new system as well as with X-ray only to compare. The goal of this study is to show that the new system can drastically reduce the radiation exposure of the surgeon during this procedure performed daily. The work will be in close collaboration with clinical partners at the LMU hospital in Klinikum Innenstadt (Sendliger Tor). The preclinical study will be conducted in direct relationship with a medical student ( in its Doktor-Arbeit) which will take care of the medical aspects of the study while the master student will take care of the technical aspects.

The master student working on this project will have the following challenges:

• Improving the current visualization using the different data available not used or refined yet
• Create an environment for the preclinical study that will allow a deep understanding of the changes brought by our new system to the medical procedure (facet joint injection)

This second task will, for example, include the tracking of the participants during the study (using RGBD cameras), to measure their distance to the X-ray source every time they shot an X-ray image. It will also involve the use of dosimeters to know the precise measure of radiation. The goal is to show that by changing of behavior during X-ray acquisition and reduction of the X-ray images, the new setup drastically reduce the radiation exposure of the surgeon during the procedure.

Competencies required for this topic:

• C++, Qt, OpenCV^?, willingness to learn Cuda
• Good understanding of standard Computer Vision algorithms
• Desire to work in a clinical environment in direct contact with medical students and surgeons

Literature

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZh4iV6xV6M&list=PL39AoifaBp1W8uZ1OPGUyoHOK20w1LuYu&index=1

[2] Habert, S., Meng, M., Kehl, W., Wang, X., Tombari, F., Fallavollita, P., & Navab, N. (2015, September). [POSTER] Augmenting Mobile C-arm Fluoroscopes via Stereo-RGBD Sensors for Multimodal Visualization. In Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR), 2015 IEEE International Symposium on (pp. 72-75). IEEE.

[3] https://www.spine-health.com/treatment/injections/cervical-thoracic-and-lumbar-facet-joint-injections