Computer-aided image-guided bone fracture surgery: concept and implementation

Leo Joskowicz (1), Lana Tockus (1), Ziv Yaniv (1), Ariel Simkin (2), and
Charles Milgrom (3)


(1) Institute of Computer Science, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
(2) Lab. Experimental Surgery, Hadassah Univ. Hospital, Jerusalem 91120, Israel
(3) Dept. of Orthopaedic Surgery, Hadassah Univ. Hospital, Jerusalem 91120, Israel

Abstract:

This paper describes the FRACAS computer-integrated orthopaedic system for
assisting surgeons in closed long bone fracture reduction.  FRACAS goals
are to reduce the surgeon's cumulative exposure to radiation and improve
the positioning accuracy by replacing uncorrelated static fluoroscopic
images with a ``virtual reality'' display of 3D bone models created from
preoperative CT and tracked intraoperatively in real-time.  Fluoroscopic
images are used to register the bone models to the intraoperative situation
and to verify that the registration is maintained.  This paper describes
the system concept, the software prototypes of the modeling, preoperative
planning, visualization, and fluoroscopic image processing modules, and
preliminary experimental results.  

Keywords: computer-aided orthopaedic surgey, navigation, trauma 

Published in: In Proc. of the 12th Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery
Symposium, Tokyo, 1998.