2016 Summer Project Week/Sacral Neuromodulation

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  Projects List

Key Investigators

• Javier Pascau (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain)
• Rocío López (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain)
• David García (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain)
• Tamas Ungi (Queen's University, Canada)

Background

Sacral Neuromodulation is a surgical procedure performed for the treatment of pathologies, such as urinary and fecal incontinence, urinary retention and constipation. An electrode is inserted through a needle in a sacral root which controls the bladder and the intestine to stimulate the efferent and afferent vias.

Nowadays, this intervention is only validated through intraoperative x-ray fluoroscopy while the insertion of the needle is being performed. The main challenge of the doctor in the surgery is the placement of the needle in the correct position for proper stimulation of the nerve.

We propose a new 3D Slicer module to guide the needle intervention using an electromagnetic tracking system.

Project Description

Objective

• A slicer module/GUI for tracking the needle in a Sacral Neuromodulation intervention.

Approach, Plan

• Use PLUS library for data (electromagnetic tracker transforms) acquisition.

• The GUI for the guidance: Is guidelet only useful with ultrasound? We have used their properties to create our GUI, hiding ultrasound properties, which is not very smart.

Progress

• Slicer development has been properly set up.