Development of a real-time image-guided surgery system for stereo-endoscopic sinus surgery

We describe an image-guided surgery system for endoscopic sinus surgery. The system has three components: stereoscopic endoscope, optical location sensor and graphic workstation. The optical location sensor measures the movement of the endoscope and the patient's head. Using the sensor's data, the graphic workstation captures the endoscopic video image and superimposes 3D organ models onto the image in real-time. After a phantom experiment, we used this system during endoscopic sinus surgery. The surgeons were able to observe the inner structure of the patient stereoscopically in a 3D field of view.