Kidney and Liver

Minimally Invasive Kidney and Liver Surgery

Current Graduate Students: Uditha Jayarathne

Laparoscopic surgery is a form of minimally invasive image-guided surgery. This technique is becoming increasing popular for renal (kidney) and hepatic (liver) procedures. For instance, cases such as, radical prostatectomy (i.e. complete removal of the prostate and adjacent structures) and cholecystectomy (i.e. removal of the gall bladder) opt for using a laparoscope, a small camera placed inside the patient to view the internal organs and tissues, to provide vision for the surgery itself.

This increasing acceptance of minimally invasive kidney (renal) and liver (hepatic) surgery has demanded our engineering efforts to focus on improving these current image-guided procedures.

Some of the current system limitations are that:

  • Laparoscopic video is not stereoscopic
  • Preoperative images (taken from CT and MR) are not effectively integrated into the visualization

Our Contribution

The proposed direction of our laboratory is to integrate stereoscopic video with laparoscopic ultrasound to provide better visualization and improved depth perception. We hope to apply this system to kidney tumor resection.

Key Questions

  • How can we integrate mono- and stereoscopic laproscopy with interoperative ultrasound?
  • Can vision-based tracking decrease the expense of laproscopic procedures without sacrificing accuracy or speed?