Augmented Reality Based Surgical Navigation for RAPN Surgery Using Stereo Endoscope
Recently, surgical robots are widely used to remove kidney cancer. These surgeries are called ‘Robot Assistant Partial Nephrectomy (RAPN)’. Using the stereo endoscope, which is widely used in robot surgery, we have developed an augmented reality surgical navigation that makes RAPN easier to proceed. Augmented reality works in real time and can show cancer that is not directly visible to the endoscope.
Researchers
Deoki Jeung, Kyunghwa Jung
Before remove cancer, find artery and find cancer process is need to Partial Nephrectomy. In this situation, RAPN can reduce surgery time and patient recovery time compared to open surgery. The Da Vinci system is most commonly used for assistant robot and it has stereo type endoscope.
But kidneys are covered with fat and endoscope has limited field of view. So it still requires a lot of skill. This is maximized when the cancer is not visible on the kidney surface. In this case augmented reality surgical navigation can be the solution for safe partial nephrectomy. Augmented reality can be implemented using the properties of the stereo endoscope and can show cancer which is invisible on surface.