Three-Dimensional Ultrasonic Needle Tip Tracking with a Fiber-Optic Ultrasound Receiver

Ultrasound is frequently used for guiding minimally invasive procedures, but visualizing medical devices is often challenging with this imaging modality. When visualization is lost, the medical device can cause trauma to critical tissue structures. Here, a method to track the needle tip during ultrasound image-guided procedures is presented. This method involves the use of a fiber-optic ultrasound receiver that is affixed within the cannula of a medical needle to communicate ultrasonically with the external ultrasound probe. This custom probe comprises a central transducer element array and side element arrays. In addition to conventional two-dimensional (2D) B-mode ultrasound imaging provided by the central array, three-dimensional (3D) needle tip tracking is provided by the side arrays. For B-mode ultrasound imaging, a standard transmit-receive sequence with electronic beamforming is performed. For ultrasonic tracking, Golay-coded ultrasound transmissions from the 4 side arrays are received by the hydrophone sensor, and subsequently the received signals are decoded to identify the needle tip's spatial location with respect to the ultrasound imaging probe. As a preliminary validation of this method, insertions of the needle/hydrophone pair were performed in clinically realistic contexts. This novel ultrasound imaging/tracking method is compatible with current clinical workflow, and it provides reliable device tracking during in-plane and out-of-plane needle insertions.