FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present disclosure relates generally to medical imaging and, more particularly to systems, methods, and devices for planning and carrying out minimally invasive procedures using external devices for needle guidance.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Minimally invasive medical procedures are becoming increasingly popular in the medical community due to shortened hospital stays and improved quality of life for the patient. For example, in the field of interventional oncology, percutaneous ablations are often preferred over surgical resection due to the minimally invasive nature of the procedure and thus shortened patient recovery period.

Medical images assist physicians in planning, performing, and post-operative analysis of minimally invasive and other procedures. Some imaging modalities that are useful include ultrasound imaging, computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Medical images can also be used to assist in navigating various instruments relative to the patient while performing a procedure.

During planning, for minimally invasive image-guided needle interventions (biopsy, ablation therapy, etc.), a target lesion or anatomy is usually identified in medical images of modalities such CT, MRI, etc. An insertion point on the skin surface is also usually identified in the medical images to plan the needle trajectory. To aid in directing the needle along the planned trajectory a guidance device may be used, positioned on or near the patient skin. The device geometry plus the length of the needle will place constraints on the reachable area, so a mental picture is formed based on knowledge of the device, experience and measurements on the image data to determine whether the target is reachable from the chosen insertion point. During a procedure using a guidance device, the device is placed on the patient and new images are acquired, on which the device can be identified and registered to the image space. It can then be confirmed whether the target is reachable.

However, the medial images are generally scanned in a cross-section relative to the patient anatomy (e.g., the patient lies on the gantry within a CT or MRI bore) and the cross sectional images are obtained without reference to the relative location of the target lesion and the skin entry point. Thus, when viewing a two-dimensional image on the screen, it can be difficult to visualize and understand the relationship between the target lesion, the skin entry point, and any critical structures or other features that could affect the intervention.

Thus, in conventional systems, there is limited ability to plan, perform, and analyze the effectiveness of the procedure with sufficient simplicity, accuracy, no provision for simulating the device placement in the imaging software during planning for evaluating target reachability. Thus, before the needle guidance device is placed on the patient, imaged and registered to the image space, it is difficult to be certain that the target point is reachable from the chosen insertion point using the device.

While U.S. Pat. No. 9,710,146; U.S. Pat. Pub. 2011/0007071 and others have provided systems and methods for image display control that supports a user in selecting an image of interested from among a three-dimensional data set, it does not allow for a simple and intuitive way of planning and carrying out minimally invasive procedures for needle guidance.

Thus, there is need for devises, systems, and methods to overcome the problems as discussed above.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, it is a broad object of the present disclosure to provide devices, systems, and methods to allow a clinician to easily visualize 3D images on a 2D display to provide planning, performance, and evaluation techniques.

The present disclosure provides an image processing apparatus and a method of use for supporting a needle placement process, planning, or assessment comprising a processor that operates to: acquire a three-dimensional image set comprising a stack of two-dimensional image slices, the three-dimensional image set; acquire the location of at least one region of interest or at least one target point in the three-dimensional image set; acquire the location of at least one insertion point in the three-dimensional image set; cause a display to display a first image slice from the three-dimensional image set; and cause the display to display, concurrent with the first image slice, an indicator bar, wherein the indicator bar indicates: the location of the first two-dimensional image slice within the three-dimensional image set, the location of the at least one region of interest or at least one target point within the three-dimensional image set, and the location of the insertion point with the three-dimensional image set.

Also provided are methods for visualizing, performing planning or treatment for a percutaneous probe treatment, by using the apparatus and/or processer as described herein. Other embodiments include a server storing an imaging application having instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the server to perform the methods as described herein. Yet other embodiments include a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing an imaging application to cause an imaging server to perform the methods as described herein.

In one or more embodiments, the devices as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 9,222,966, 9,867,667, 9,867,673, U.S. Pat. Pub. 2014/0275978, U.S. Pat. Pub. 2016/0074063, U.S. Pat. Pub. 2017/0071626, U.S. Pat. Pub. 2017/0030557, U.S. Pat. Pub. 2017/0000581, U.S. Pat. Pub. 2017/0172458, International Pub. WO2017/180643, and International Pub. WO2018/075671, each of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety may be used in conjunction with the planning, performance, and evaluation apparatuses and systems, and methods as described herein.

In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure, visualizing, planning, performance, and evaluation apparatuses and systems, and methods and storage mediums may operate to characterize and/or treat biological objects, such as, but not limited to, lesions, tumors, critical structures, etc.

In accordance with at least another aspect of the present disclosure, the planning, performance, and evaluation technique(s) systems and methods discussed herein may be employed to reduce the cost of at least one of manufacture and maintenance of planning, performance, and evaluation devices, systems and storage mediums by reducing or minimizing a number of components therein to cut down cost.

According to other aspects of the present disclosure, one or more additional devices, one or more systems, one or more methods and one or more storage mediums for planning, performance, and evaluation are discussed herein. Further features of the present disclosure will in part be understandable and will in part be apparent from the following description and with reference to the attached drawings.

