Systems and methods for locating and defining a target location within a human body

#Several aspects of the present invention relate to systems and methods for locating a target tissue within a human body with wireless markers. Other aspects of the invention relate to wireless markers, instruments, user interfaces, and methods for using such systems in treating or monitoring a target location.

#Many medical procedures require monitoring or treating an internal tissue mass or other body part within a human body. In such applications, medical procedures must accurately locate a small target location within a soft tissue region, an organ, a bone structure, or another body part (e.g., colon, vascular system, etc.). The small target location can be a lesion, polyp, tumor, or another area of interest for monitoring or treating a patient. One particular application involving the surgical treatment of cancer is particularly challenging because physicians often need to treat small, non-palpable lesions that cannot be observed. This problem is compounded in soft tissue applications because the soft tissue is mobile and can move with respect to a reference point on the patient. In the case of breast cancer, for example, the location of a non-palpable lesion in the breast is identified at a preoperative stage using an imaging system. The actual surgical procedure, however, occurs in an operating room at a subsequent point in time, and the patient is typically in a different position during the surgical procedure than during the preoperative imaging stage. The breast and the lesion may accordingly be in a different location relative to a reference point on the patient during the surgical procedure than the imaging stage. The physician, therefore, generally estimates the location of lesion during surgery.

#One problem with treating non-palpable lesions in soft tissues is that the physicians may incorrectly estimate the location of the lesions. As a result, the physician may not remove all of the lesion, which is not desirable because some of the lesion will accordingly remain in the soft tissue. Another result is that the physicians may remove a significant amount of tissue proximate to the lesion, which can cause undesirable collateral damage to healthy tissue. Therefore, it would be desirable to know the precise location of the lesion or other type of target location during the surgical procedure.

#FIG. 1 is an isometric view representative of a tissue mass and surrounding tissue volume that is bracketed by the markers, with two markers being positioned on opposite ends of each of mutually orthogonal X, Y and Z-axes intersecting the tissue mass so as to define the boundary of the tissue volume, and with the probe and detector being positioned adjacent the tissue volume in accordance with one embodiment of the invention.

#FIG. 1A is an isometric view of the tissue mass illustrated in FIG. 1, with two markers being positioned on opposite ends of each of mutually orthogonal X1, Y1 and Z-axes and with two markers being positioned on opposite ends of mutually orthogonal X2 and Y2-axes which are mutually orthogonal with respect to the Z-axis and offset along with Z-axis with respect to the X1 and Y1-axes.

#FIG. 1B is an isometric view of the tissue volume illustrated in FIG. 1, with two markers being positioned on opposite ends of each of V, W, X and Y-axes, all of which lie in a common plane and are mutually orthogonal with respect to a Z-axis, all of these axes intersecting the tissue mass.

#The following description is directed toward systems and methods for locating and defining a target location within a human body. Several aspects of one system in accordance with an embodiment of the invention directed toward bracketing a target location with at least one marker are described below in Section I. Similarly, aspects of other systems in accordance with embodiments of the invention directed toward locating a target mass within a human body using the relative orientation between an implanted marker and an instrument are described below in Section II. Other aspects of embodiments of the invention directed toward defining and displaying a virtual boundary relative to a target location based on the location of an implanted marker are also described below in Section II.

#I. Systems and Methods for Delineating a Target Location Using Bracketing

#FIGS. 1-20 illustrate a system and several components for delineating a target location within a human body in accordance with several embodiments of invention. Several of the components described below with reference to FIGS. 1-20 can also be used in the systems set forth with respect to FIGS. 21-61. Therefore, like reference numbers refer to like components and features throughout the various figures.