Abstract
Endoscopic renal surgeries have high re-operation rates, particularly
for lower volume surgeons. Due to the limited field and depth of view of
current endoscopes, mentally mapping preoperative computed tomography
(CT) images of patient anatomy to the surgical field is challenging. The
inability to completely navigate the intrarenal collecting system leads
to missed kidney stones and tumors, subsequently raising recurrence
rates. We propose a guidance system to estimate the endoscope positions
within the CT to reduce re-operation rates. We use a Structure from
Motion algorithm to reconstruct the kidney collecting system from the
endoscope videos. In addition, we segment the kidney collecting system
from CT scans using 3D U-Net to create a 3D model. We can then register
the two collecting system representations to provide information on the
relative endoscope position. We demonstrate correct reconstruction and
localization of intrarenal anatomy and endoscope position. Furthermore,
we create a 3D map supported by the RGB endoscope images to reduce the
burden of mental mapping during surgery. The proposed reconstruction
pipeline has been validated for guidance. It can reduce the mental
burden for surgeons and is a step towards our long-term goal of reducing
re-operation rates in kidney stone surgery.