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Towards non-invasive patient tracking: optical image analysis for spine tracking during spinal surgery procedures

Surgical navigation systems can enhance surgeon vision and form a reliable image-guided tool for complex interventions as spinal surgery. The main prerequisite is successful patient tracking which implies optimal motion compensation. Nowadays, optical tracking systems can satisfy the need of detecting patient position during surgery, allowing navigation without the risk of damaging neurovascular structures. However, the spine is subject to vertebrae movements which can impact the accuracy of the system. The aim of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of a novel approach for offering a direct relationship to movements of the spinal vertebra during surgery. To this end, we detect and track patient spine features between different image views, captured by several optical cameras, for vertebrae rotation and displacement reconstruction. We analyze patient images acquired in a real surgical scenario by two gray-scale cameras, embedded in the flat-panel detector of the C-arm. Spine segmentation is performed and anatomical landmarks are designed and tracked between different views, while experimenting with several feature detection algorithms (e.g. SURF, MSER, etc.). The 3D positions for the matched features are reconstructed and the triangulation errors are computed for an accuracy assessment. The analysis of the triangulation accuracy reveals a mean error of 0.38 mm, which demonstrates the feasibility of spine tracking and strengthens the clinical application of optical imaging for spinal navigation.