Surgical X-ray tool could help track steerable needles

Many surgical procedures now use long, thin devices – such as ‘steerable needles’ – that can be inserted into a patient’s body through a small incision and then steered to a target location.

These minimally invasive procedures - including laparoscopic or other procedures such as biopsis or drug-delivery with steerable needles - allow doctors to perform surgeries without having to make major incisions, which decreases the risk of infection and shortens the patient’s recovery time.

However, these techniques pose a challenge to surgeons, because it is difficult for them to determine precisely where the surgical device is in the patient’s body.

One solution to the problem is to use X-rays to track the progress of the surgical device in the patient. But doctors want to minimize the number of X-rays taken, in order to limit the patient’s exposure to radiation.

‘We have now developed an algorithm to determine the fewest number of X-rays that need to be taken, as well as what angles they need to be taken from, in order to give surgeons the information they need on a surgical device’s location in the body,’ said Dr. Edgar Lobaton, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University and lead author of a paper on the research carried out with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC).