Affiliations: [a] School of Electronics and Information Engineering, Xi’an Siyuan University, Xi’an, Shanxi, P. R. China | [b] School of Computer, Electronics and Information, Guangxi University, Nanning, Guangxi, P. R. China | [c]
Guangxi Key Laboratory of Multimedia Communications and Network Technology, Nanning, Guangxi, China
| [d]
People’s Hospital of Guangxi Zhuang Nationality Autonomous Region, Nanning, Guangxi, China
Abstract: Multi-phase computed tomography images are widely applied to doctors’ routine interpretation of organic lesions or before human abdominal surgery. However, because of the lack of intuitive and three-dimensional (3D) observations, human factors lead to 80% of the clinical errors. A primary malignant tumor resection system based on a virtual reality (VR) helmet and a force-feedback device combined with a 3D printing model is proposed in this paper. First, we used the thin-plate spline (TPS) deformation method to register the different phase images. In the case of a metastatic tumor, a spherical scoring filter (SSF) model was built for searching the tumor pattern with edge detection and subtraction processing, from which the initial tumors were selected on the basis of the calculated score. For hepatocellular carcinoma cases, candidates were extracted as the areas without edges by using edge detection filters on the subtraction image between the equilibrium and arterial phase images. Finally, the false positive (FP) candidate was eliminated before obtaining the 3D shape of the liver tumor in the expansion process, thus providing an accurate volume of lesions for the surgical plan for the liver resection. The results showed that our virtual surgery system enabled the user to simulate the use of a scalpel for cutting and removing the organ labels; 3D display on a VR helmet with a deformable effect; and touching organs with a force-feedback device. Our virtual surgery tools could simulate all of the effects of the doctors’ operations and make clinical practice more efficient.
