October 8, 2018
Jean-Claude Rosenthal (Capture & Display Systems Group in the Vision & Imaging Technologies Department at Fraunhofer HHI) and his colleagues and paper co-authors Niklas Gard, Peter Eisert (both Fraunhofer HHI) and Armin Schneider (Arnold & Richter Cine Technik GmbH, ARRI Medical) received the International Society for Computer Aided Surgery (ISCAS) Best Paper Award 2018. The committee of the International Society for Computer Aided Surgery awarded their essay „Microscopic image-based determination of stapes prosthesis length”.
The authors developed an alternative for stapedectomies, the common treatment for patients suffering from hearing loss caused by otosclerosis. A stapedectomy is a surgical replacement of a part of the stapes with a micro prosthesis. During the intervention, the surgeon needs to choose an appropriate-sized prosthesis. An accurate measurement of the incus-footplate distance can improve the hearing outcome. Furthermore, the selection of the correct fitting prosthesis with fewer tries reduces the overall costs of the operation. Since the size differences of the prostheses are small (e.g. 0.25mm), it is difficult to judge the needed size by eye, especially in the magnified microscope image. Therefore, the team provides an entirely image-based measurement approach using the surgical microscope ARRISCOPE by Arnold & Richter Cine Technik to avoid usage of physical instruments in terms of handling and sterilization. In their case, the surgeon uses a joystick to select image points directly within the microscopic image, enabling metric point-to-point distance measurements. This leads to an integrated, less invasive and improved workflow, reducing cost and surgery risk.
