Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

Andy Ivan

Jeffrey Harold Yanof

Paul Klahr

Dave Hoffmeyer

A method ( ) and apparatus ( ) are provided for planning an executing minimally invasive procedures for in-vivo placement of objects within the body of a patient. The method and apparatus enable non-invasive pre-operation virtual seed placement and dose distribution planning using visualization information showing a patient's anatomy together with a set of single point targets ( ) within the patient's body and a corresponding set of trajectories ( ) through the skin and body of the patient leading to the selected target points. For enhanced visualization, multiplanar reformatted images ( ) are derived from CT image data sets and are angled to always contain the plane of the virtual needle ( ) in the pseudo-axial image and its 90 degree slice counterpart. In an implementation stage, a stereotactic arm ( ) spatially referenced to the patient's data set acts a needle guide ( ) and is used to locate preplanned image planes containing virtual seed deposition points. A physical needle ( ) is aligned with preplanned virtual needle trajectories ( ) so that one or more seeds or other objects can be precisely placed within the patient's body.

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Aurora, OH, United States of America

Andy Ivan