SURGICAL IMAGING.

Surgical imaging (also referred to as Image-guided surgery) augments surgical procedures as it enables the surgeon to utilize intra-operative and postoperative images to track surgical instruments in intra-operative surgery or to indirectly guide a surgical procedure. As such, it complements the surgical practice. Surgical imaging is classified as one of the sub-categories of computer assisted surgery. Surgical imaging, by nature, is usually non-invasive or minimally invasive. The novel field in surgery and medicine that pioneered, revolutionized and specializes in non-invasive or minimally invasive surgical imaging is called interventional radiology (also called Vascular and Interventional Radiology, or Surgical Radiology).

History.

Surgical imaging was originally developed to aid in the treatment of brain tumors (or cerebral neoplasias) using a surgical technique combining radio-surgery and stereotactic surgery under the guidance of positron emission tomography ( abbreviated as PET), magnetic resonance imaging (abbreviated as  MRI) and  computed tomography (abbreviated as  CT) via utilization of an avant-garde technological tool called N-localizer. In general, an N-localizer is a surgical tool that facilitates either radio-surgery or stereotactic surgery via the utilization of tomographic images obtained through medical imaging technologies. Widespread utilization of the N-localizer stimulated interest in surgical imaging and it also led to further development in the core aspects of image-guided surgery.

Utility.

Currently, surgical imaging is widely utilized in surgery of maxillary and frontal sinuses where it confers the unique advantage to the surgeon of enabling him or her to have accurate images which enables him or her to avoid damaging either the delicate nervous system or causing a contusion in the deeper lying brain matter. It has also aided surgeons to perform mechanical atherectomy, stenting and angioplasty in cases of peripheral artery disease.

In the field on oncology, surgical imaging has enabled the surgeon or intervention radiologist to characterize the tumor type, tumor size, extent of spread of the malignancy and the anatomical relation of the cancer; and this goes a long way in enabling the surgeon to successfully select the correct course of treatment and surgery. It has also complemented oncological interventional modalities such as high-intensity focused ultrasound (abbreviated as HIFU), irreversible electroporation (abbreviated as IRE), radiofrequency ablation (abbreviated as RFA), microwave ablation and cryoablation.

Surgical imaging system.

The most essential component of an image-guided surgery system is a hand-held (portable) surgical probe. The Surgical imaging system tracks this probe and also displays the real-time anatomy beneath the probe as 3 orthogonal image slices (as is common in workstation-based three-dimensional imaging system).

Current Surgical imaging systems uses the following tracking techniques: electromagnetic, optical, mechanical and ultrasonic trackers. However, a fluorescence modality can be adopted into surgical imaging, and the technique is thereby referred to as fluorescence image-guided surgery.