System and method of providing real-time dynamic imagery of a medical procedure site using multiple modalities

#The present invention is directed to a system and method of providing composite real-time dynamic imagery of a medical procedure site using multiple modalities. One or more of the modalities may provide two-dimensional or three-dimensional imagery.

#It is well established that minimally-invasive surgery (MIS) techniques offer significant health benefits over their analogous laparotomic (or “open”) counterparts. Among these benefits are reduced trauma, rapid recovery time, and shortened hospital stays, resulting in greatly reduced care needs and costs. However, because of limited visibility to certain internal organs, some surgical procedures are at present difficult to perform using MIS. With conventional technology, a surgeon operates through small incisions using special instruments while viewing internal anatomy and the operating field through a two-dimensional monitor. Operating below while seeing a separate image above can give rise to a number of problems. These include the issue of parallax, a spatial coordination problem, and a lack of depth perception. Thus, the surgeon bears a higher cognitive load when employing MIS techniques than with conventional open surgery because the surgeon has to work with a less natural hand-instrument-image coordination.

#These problems may be exacerbated when the surgeon wishes to employ other modalities to view the procedure. A modality may be any method and/or technique for visually representing a scene. Such modalities, such as intraoperative laparoscopic ultrasound, would benefit the procedure by providing complementary information regarding the anatomy of the surgical site, and, in some cases, allowing the surgeon to see inside of an organ before making an incision or performing any other treatment and/or procedure. But employing more than one modality is often prohibitively difficult to use. This is particularly the case when the modalities are video streams displayed separately on separate monitors. Even if the different modalities are presented in a picture-in-picture or side-by-side arrangement on the same monitor, it would not be obvious to the surgeon, or any other viewer, how the anatomical features in each video stream correspond. This is so because, the spatial relationship between the areas of interest at the surgical site, for example, surface, tissue, organs, and/or other objects imaged by the different modalities, are not aligned to the same view perspectives. As such, the same areas of interest may be positioned and oriented differently between the different modalities. This is a particular problem for modalities like ultrasound, wherein anatomical features do not obviously correspond to the same feature in optical (or white-light) video.

#The accompanying drawing figures incorporated in and forming a part of this specification illustrate several aspects of the invention, and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the invention.

#FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating an exemplary real-time dynamic imaging system, wherein a first real-time, dynamic video stream of a scene may be received from a first video source, and a second real-time dynamic video stream of the scene may be received from a second video source, and wherein the first real-time dynamic video stream and the second real-time dynamic video stream may be spatially registered to each other, according to an embodiment of the present invention;

#FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating a process for generating a composite real-time dynamic video stream of the scene by spatially registering the first real-time dynamic video stream and the second real-time dynamic video stream according to an embodiment of the present invention;

#The embodiments set forth below represent the necessary information to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention and illustrate the best mode of practicing the invention. Upon reading the following description in light of the accompanying drawing figures, those skilled in the art will understand the concepts of the invention and will recognize applications of these concepts not particularly addressed herein. It should be understood that these concepts and applications fall within the scope of the disclosure and the accompanying claims.

#The present invention is directed to a system and method of providing composite real-time, dynamic imagery of a medical procedure site from multiple modalities which continuously and immediately depicts the current state and condition of the medical procedure site synchronously with respect to each modality and without undue latency. The composite real-time dynamic imagery may be provided by spatially registering multiple real-time dynamic video streams from the multiple modalities to each other. Spatially registering the multiple real-time dynamic video streams to each other may provide a continuous and immediate depiction of the medical procedure site with an unobstructed and detailed view of a region of interest at the medical procedure site. As such, a surgeon, or other medical practitioner, may view a single, accurate, and current composite real-time dynamic imagery of a region of interest at the medical procedure site as he/she performs a medical procedure, and thereby, may properly and effectively implement the medical procedure.

#In this regard, a first real-time dynamic video stream of a scene based on a first modality may be received. A second real-time dynamic video stream of the scene based on a second modality may also be received. The scene may comprise tissues, bones, instruments, and/or other surfaces or objects at a medical procedure site and at multiple depths. The first real-time dynamic video stream and the second real-time dynamic video stream may be spatially registered to each other. Spatially registering the first real-time dynamic video stream and the second real-time dynamic video stream to each other may form a composite representation of the scene. A composite real-time dynamic video stream of the scene may be generated from the composite representation. The composite real-time dynamic video stream may provide a continuous and immediate depiction of the medical procedure site with an unobstructed and detailed view at multiple depths of a region of interest at the medical procedure site. The composite real-time dynamic video stream may be sent to a display.