Brainlab Ag

Rainer Lachner

Stefan Vilsmeier

Rowena Thomson

Andreas Blumhofer

Bálint Varkuti

Katrin Unterlindner

Gregor Tuma

Wolfgang Steinle

Thomas Feilkas

Manfred Weiser

Bálint Várkuti

Stephan Mittermeyer

Cornel Schlossbauer

Stephan Fröhlich

Falko Seifferth

Katrin Stedele

Mona Frommert

Christina Von Freyberg

Christina Sladky

Christof Ruch

Disclosed is a computer-implemented method of determining one or more position and/or orientation parameters of an anatomical structure of a body portion. The anatomical structure has a longitudinal shape defining a longitudinal axis. The method includes generating and/or reading, by a data processing system, volumetric data of at least a portion of a subject. The method further includes generating and/or reading, by the data processing system, a deformable template which provides an estimate for a location of the longitudinal axis in the portion of the subject. The method further includes matching, by the data processing system, the deformable template to the volumetric data, thereby obtaining a matched template. The matching comprises using one or more internal energy functions and one or more external energy functions for optimizing an objective function. The method further includes determining, by the data processing system, the at least one position and/or orientation parameter based on the matched template.

Method, system and computer program for determining position and/or orientation parameters of an anatomical structure

A data processing method for determining a path of a neural fibre in a patient, comprising the steps of:

Localization of fibrous neural structures

Disclosed is a method for determining a position of a brain sulcus in the brain of a patient, the method comprising executing, on at least one processor of at least one computer, steps of: acquiring, at the at least one processor, patient image data describing a digital medical image of at least part of the brain; acquiring, at the at least one processor, atlas data describing an image-based model of the at least part of the brain; determining, by the at least one processor and based on the patient image data and the atlas data, mapping data describing a transformation between the patient image data and the atlas data; and determining, by the at least one processor and based on the patient image data and the atlas data and the mapping data, sulcus position data describing the position of the brain sulcus in the digital medical image.

Automatic detection and identification of brain sulci in MRI

1. A medical data processing method of determining information describing the probable position of a neural fiber in a patient's brain, the method comprising the following steps which are constituted to be executed by a computer: a) acquiring patient-specific medical image data describing the brain of the patient; b) acquiring atlas data defining an image-based model of a human brain; c) determining, based on the patient-specific medical image data and the atlas data, seed region data describing seed regions (A, B) in the patient-specific medical image data in which the ends of neural fibers of the patient's brain may be located; d) determining, based on the patient-specific medical image data and the seed region data, neural fiber tract data describing a plurality of potential tracts (T, T, T) which a specific neural fiber may take through the patient's brain; e) determining, based on the atlas data and the neural fiber tract data, a figure of merit for each one of the potential tracts (T, T, T).

Auto-calibration of probabilistic tracking parameters for DTI fibre tractography and compilation of tract probability comparison scales

A data processing method for determining an enhancing structure of interest within an anatomical body part, wherein the structure of interest exhibits an enhanced signal in an image of the anatomical body part generated by a medical imaging method using a contrast agent, said method being designed to be performed by a computer and comprising a region growing algorithm.

Determination of enhancing structures in an anatomical body part

A medical data processing method of determining a virtual image () of a part of a patient's body (), the method being constituted to be executed by a computer and comprising the following steps: a) acquiring (S) patient image data describing at least two two-dimensional patient images () of anatomical body parts () of the patient's body (); b) acquiring (S) atlas data describing a general structure () of at least part of the patient's body comprising correspondence parts corresponding to the anatomical body parts (); c) acquiring correspondence part position data describing the positions of the correspondence parts in the general structure (); determining (S, S, S), based on the patient image data and the atlas data and the correspondence part position data, virtual image data describing a two-dimensional virtual image () of a part () of the general structure () having a position in the general structure () which lies between the positions of the correspondence parts.

Generating supplementary slice images based on atlas data

The present invention relates to a medical data processing method for identifying an entity of the nervous system, in particular the brain, of a patient, wherein the method is designed to be executed by a computer and comprises the following steps: a) acquiring target connectivity data comprising target connectivity information about the probability of a target entity being connected to other entities of the nervous system; b) acquiring candidate connectivity data comprising candidate connectivity information about the probability of at least one candidate entity being connected to other entities of the nervous system; and c) determining similarity data for each of the at least one candidate entities on the basis of the candidate connectivity data and the target connectivity data, wherein the similarity data comprise similarity information about the similarity between the candidate entity and the target entity.

Identification method based on connectivity profiles

The invention relates to a method for correcting MRI image distortion, in which a distortion correction procedure is carried out on an acquired MRI image data set () of a body region by graphical data processing, characterized in that: &#x2014;after the MRI image data set () has been acquired, its distortion is determined by carrying out an image registration process for registering the acquired MRI image data set () to a previously available, less distorted or undistorted image data set () of substantially the same body region; &#x2014;a transformation is determined from the image registration process; and &#x2014;by applying the transformation to the MRI image data set (), its distortion is corrected.

Retrospective MRI image distortion correction

A system and method of determining a measure of accuracy of a registration mapping combining data indicative of spatial positions in a three-dimensional operating space and imaging data acquired with an imaging device located in a position and orientation in operating space is provided. A phantom is brought into a first pose, wherein the phantom is at least in partial view of the imaging device located in a second pose, the phantom comprising a marker assembly that can be imaged by the imaging device. Image data of the marker assembly of the phantom is acquired with the imaging device in the second pose. Imaged markers in the acquired image data of the marker assembly are located, and mapped markers are obtained by submitting spatial positions of the markers in the marker assembly of the phantom in the first pose to the registration mapping using the second pose as the imaging pose. A distance measure of the imaged markers and the mapped markers is determined as the measure of accuracy of the registration mapping.

Automatic improvement of tracking data for intraoperative C-arm images in image guided surgery

The present invention relates to a data processing method for providing variation data which describe a physically-varying anatomical structure, in particular an indiscernible anatomical structure, in particular a non-enhancing tumor, comprising the steps of: providing second image data which describe a second image of a region of an anatomical body, wherein the region includes a second anatomical part which includes the physically-varying anatomical structure; providing first image data which represent a first image of the same region, wherein said same region includes a first anatomical part which does not include the physically-varying anatomical structure or which includes the physically-varying anatomical structure in a different physical state than in the second anatomical part; providing position change data which describe positional changes of corresponding image elements between the first image and the second image, on the basis of the first and second image data; and providing the variation data on the basis of the position change data.

Determination of a physically-varying anatomical structure

The present invention relates to a method for processing image data comprising image information about a body region of a patient, the method being at least partly executed by an electronic data processing device and comprising the following steps: d) providing the image data; e) assigning, to elements of the image information, a predetermined probability for the image information contained in the respective element representing a predetermined tissue class, wherein the predetermined probability is provided independently of information about at least part of a body which is different from the body of the patient; f) determining, on the basis of the predetermined probability and for a subset of the image information comprising a plurality of the elements, an element-specific probability for individual elements of the subset representing an element-specific tissue class.

Longitudinal monitoring of pathology

A method for determining a location of a frontal pelvic plane of a pelvic bone includes ascertaining a position of a pubic point of the pelvic bone; generating at least one x-ray recording of the pelvic bone; ascertaining a straight line in the at least one x-ray recording that passes through the pubic point and a contour of the pelvic bone; and ascertaining the location of the frontal pelvic plane from a rear-projection of the straight line.

Method and device for determining the location of pelvic planes

A method for determining a three-dimensional form of a body from two-dimensional projection images includes producing at least one projection image of the body and producing corresponding model projection images from a generic model of the body. The body projection images and the model can be input into a computer-assisted processing unit and the generic model can be adjusted to the body by comparing image contents of the body projection images with the model projections images at a two-dimensional level only. The three-dimensional form of the body can be determined from the adjusted generic model.

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Munich, Germany

Rainer Lachner