Knowledge Acquisition and Construction of a RDF-Ontology for Computer-Assisted Surgery

The integration of surgical knowledge into virtual planning systems plays a key role in computer-assisted surgery. The knowledge is often implicitly contained in the implemented algorithms. However, a strict separation would be desirable for reasons of maintainability, reusability and readability. Along with the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Heidelberg University Hospital, we are working on the development of a virtual planning system for mandibular reconstruction. In this work we describe a process for the structured acquisition and representation of surgical knowledge for mandibular reconstruction. Based on the acquired knowledge, an RDF(S) ontology was created. The ontology is connected to the virtual planning system via a SPARQL interface. The described process of knowledge acquisition can be transferred to other surgical use cases. Furthermore, the developed ontology is characterised by a reusable and easily expandable data model.