ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the key components for image-guided minimally invasive surgeries: registration techniques, surgical planning, frame-based and frameless stereotactic systems, and imaging modalities that allow for intraoperative imaging in real-time. The use of images acquired prior to the surgery requires tracking of surgical instruments in the operational field and mapping of the images to the surgical field. The spatial alignment of image data from sources with differences in spatial resolution, field of view, orientation, scale, or anatomical contrast is referred to as image registration. Image registration based on global rigid body coordinate transformation found wide-spread use in head imaging. Image registration algorithms must determine the transformation as accurately as possible. Intrinsic registration techniques are based on the image content without fiducial reference systems. Image segmentation can be used to automatically extract curves or surfaces from salient objects. High spatial fidelity for the registration is imperative for the procedures and two categories for proper registration exist: frame-based and frameless stereotactic surgery.
