Mixed Reality Image Guidance for Cardiac Interventional Surgery

Background & Unmet Need

• Minimally invasive, image-guided cardiac interventions are increasingly available as substitutes for more invasive surgical approaches
• With these minimally invasive procedures, tools for visualization are needed to improve guidance and lower learning curves
• Current visualization techniques like fluoroscopy are limited to 2D projections, or are unable to give real-time feedback like pre-operative CT/MRI
• Advanced fusion imaging visualizations still don’t provide quantitative tracking of the catheters in 3D space, and so cannot be used to guide catheter depth or orientation
• Unmet Need: Real-time, visual guidance systems for cardiac procedures wherein the catheter can be tracked in 3D space using a single fluoroscopic view

Technology Overview

• The Technology: A novel, mixed reality guidance system which combines holographic representations of the heart and tracking of catheter position in real time
• A 3D, holographic representation of the heart is generated using preoperative cardiac CT images
• The catheter is tracked via intra-operative fluoroscopy, and machine learning is used to locate the depth of catheter in 3D space from a single angled view
• The position of the tracker and 3D image of the heart are co-registered and transferred into an MR image in real-time, visualized by see-through video glasses
• PoC Data: Optimized machine learning models for locating the catheter have demonstrated a Euclidian distance error of <2 mm for certain test data sets

Technology Applications

• Real-time, mixed reality visualization for cardiac interventional surgery
• Improved preoperative planning for cardiac interventions

Technology Advantages

• Catheter is visualized in 3D space in real time, allowing for better navigation
• Models reflect individual patients’ heart architectures, enabling precise and individualized surgeries
• Quantitative feedback will provide real-time guidance and post-intervention analytics