Real-time registration of volumetric brain MRI by biomechanical simulation of deformation during image guided neurosurgery

Abstract.

The key challenge faced by a neurosurgeon is the removal from the brain of as much tumor tissue as possible while minimizing the removal of healthy tissue and avoiding the disruption of critical anatomical structures. We developed an algorithm to create enhanced visualizations of tumor and critical brain structures by aligning preoperatively acquired image data with intraoperative images of the patient’s brain during surgery.

To be practical for use during neurosurgery, the implementation must meet the real-time constraints of neurosurgery. We present here an analysis of the performance characteristics of an implementation of our algorithm on a high end symmetric multiprocessor architecture. We demonstrated that the implementation is sufficiently fast to be used during neurosurgery through scaling experiments and by using the algorithm to capture volumetric brain deformation during three neurosurgeries. The volumetric deformation is inferred through a biomechanical simulation with boundary conditions established via surface matching. We demonstrate the value of the enhanced visualization this algorithm allows.