부산대학교 도서관

We have developed a real-time ultrasound needle tracking system based on a fibre-optic hydrophone integrated into an intraoperative needle. The system is intended to track the location of a needle tip during minimally invasive surgical procedures that rely on handheld ultrasound guidance. During these procedures, clear visibility of the needle tip is essential to reach the procedure target and avoid adverse events due to erroneous needle placement. The ultrasound emitted by the handheld probe is detected by the hydrophone and used to draw a cursor marking the position of the needle tip within the B-mode ultrasound image. The tracking accuracy was assessed by comparison to manual labelling of the location of the needle tip within the ultrasound images and found to be ±2.2 mm.