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Robust GPU-based virtual reality simulation of radio-frequency ablations for various needle geometries and locations

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International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Radio-frequency ablations play an important role in the therapy of malignant liver lesions. The navigation of a needle to the lesion poses a challenge for both the trainees and intervening physicians.

Methods

This publication presents a new GPU-based, accurate method for the simulation of radio-frequency ablations for lesions at the needle tip in general and for an existing visuo-haptic 4D VR simulator. The method is implemented real time capable with Nvidia CUDA.

Results

It performs better than a literature method concerning the theoretical characteristic of monotonic convergence of the bioheat PDE and a in vitro gold standard with significant improvements (\(p<0.05\)) in terms of Pearson correlations. It shows no failure modes or theoretically inconsistent individual simulation results after the initial phase of 10 s. On the Nvidia 1080 Ti GPU, it achieves a very high frame rendering performance of > 480 Hz.

Conclusion

Our method provides a more robust and safer real-time ablation planning and intraoperative guidance technique, especially avoiding the overestimation of the ablated tissue death zone, which is risky for the patient in terms of tumor recurrence. Future in vitro measurements and optimization shall further improve the conservative estimate.

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Notes

  1. https://goo.gl/6VPxSU.

  2. https://bit.ly/2HamKtO.

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Acknowledgements

Funding was provided by DFG: MA 6791/1-1; Nvidia GPU Grant 2018 (Mastmeyer).

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Author notes

  1. Niclas Kath and Andre Mastmeyer have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Medical Informatics, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany

    Niclas Kath, Heinz Handels & Andre Mastmeyer

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  1. Niclas Kath
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  2. Heinz Handels
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  3. Andre Mastmeyer
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Correspondence to Andre Mastmeyer.

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Kath, N., Handels, H. & Mastmeyer, A. Robust GPU-based virtual reality simulation of radio-frequency ablations for various needle geometries and locations. Int J CARS 14, 1825–1835 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-019-02033-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-019-02033-w

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