Using needle orientation sensing as surrogate signal for respiratory motion estimation in percutaneous interventions

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging and Instrumentation
• Biomedical Engineering
• Computational Anatomy

Background:

• Respiratory motion significantly impacts the accuracy of interventions targeting lesions in the chest and abdomen.
• Real-time motion estimation is crucial for precise guidance during procedures like needle biopsies or radiotherapy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate an approach for estimating respiratory-induced lesion motion in the chest and abdomen.
• To assess the feasibility of using a reference needle's motion as a surrogate for target lesion displacement.

Main Methods:

• An inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensor was attached to a reference needle inserted into a moving organ.
• A learning-based approach was trained using IMU data and target motion to estimate lesion position.
• An experimental platform mimicking liver respiratory motion was used for evaluation.

Main Results:

• The developed approach achieved a mean estimation error for target position between 0.86 and 1.29 mm.
• Maximum processing time for training and testing was 5 ms, enabling real-time estimation.
• The method demonstrated suitability for real-time target motion estimation.

Conclusions:

• External motion of a reference needle can serve as a measurable signal for real-time estimation of respiratory-induced target motion.
• This technique holds potential for guiding the placement of subsequent needles directly into moving targets.
• The approach offers a promising solution for enhancing precision in image-guided interventions.