System, apparatus, and method for supporting insertion of endoscope

• US 20050261550A1
• Filed: 07/27/2005
• Published: 11/24/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Original Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Inventors: Akimoto, Shunya, Onishi, Junichi
• Application Number:
  US11/190,336
• Publication Number:
  US 20050261550A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/117
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 1/00009 of image signals during a use of endoscope
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 34/10 Computer-aided planning, simulation or modelling of surgical operations
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 90/10 for stereotaxic surgery, e.g. frame-based stereotaxis
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 90/37 Surgical systems with images on a monitor during operation

Abstract

According to the present invention, to guide an endoscope to a target part in vivo with reliability on the basis of guide images corresponding to actual branch points, an endoscope insertion support system includes a VBS image capture unit for capturing VBS images stored in a VBS image storage unit, a navigation VBS video generation unit for generating a navigation VBS video serving as a series of navigation moving pictures to support the insertion of a bronchoscope into a bronchus on the basis of patient information entered from an input device, a navigation VBS video storage unit for storing the navigation VBS video, an image processing unit for performing various image processing operations, and a memory for temporarily storing registered navigation VBS frame images while the navigation VBS video is being generated.

Claims

1. An endoscope insertion support system for guiding an endoscope into a tubular organ in the body of a subject, the tubular organ dividing into branches, the system comprising:

virtual tubular-organ image generating means for. generating a plurality of virtual tubular-organ images corresponding to a plurality of insertion points in an insertion path of the tubular organ on the basis of image data in three dimensions in the subject body;

start-point and end-point specifying means for specifying a start point and an end point in the insertion path;

insertion-direction specifying means for extracting branch points in the insertion path between the start point and the end point to specify the insertion direction of the endoscope in the virtual tubular-organ image corresponding to each extracted branch point;

virtual tubular-organ image registering means for registering insertion information regarding the insertion direction specified by the insertion-direction specifying means by corresponding the insertion information to the virtual tubular-organ image; and

insertion-path guide video generating means for generating an insertion-path guide video comprising the virtual tubular-organ images in the insertion path between the start point and the end point via the branch points extracted by the insertion-direction specifying means and the virtual tubular-organ images to which the respective pieces of insertion information registered by the virtual tubular-organ image registering means are added.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein image data in three dimensions in the subject body is generated every frame of all paths in the bronchial tree on the basis of tomographic image data of a patient.

3. The system according to claim 1, further comprising:

virtual tubular-organ image deleting means for deleting a virtual tubular-organ image added to the corresponding insertion information registered by the virtual tubular-organ image registering means.

4. The system according to claim 1, further comprising:

image display control means for displaying a virtual tubular-organ image, corresponding to each branch point, included in the insertion-path guide video generated by the insertion-path guide image generating means as a thumbnail image in a monitor.

5. An endoscope insertion support apparatus for guiding an endoscope to a tubular organ in the body of a subject, the tubular organ dividing into branches, the apparatus comprising:

an image generation unit for generating virtual endoscopic frame images of all tubular-organ paths on the basis of tomographic image data of a patient;

an image storage unit for storing the virtual endoscopic frame images generated by the image generation unit;

an image capture unit for capturing the virtual endoscopic frame images stored in the image storage unit;

a navigation virtual endoscopic video generation unit for generating a navigation virtual endoscopic video of the patient on the basis of patient information and the virtual endoscopic frame images captured by the image capture unit and generating branch information regarding branch points in an insertion path, the information being added to the navigation virtual endoscopic video;

a navigation virtual endoscopic video storage unit for storing the navigation virtual endoscopic video and the branch information regarding the branch points in the insertion path in such a way that each piece of branch information is linked to the corresponding navigation virtual endoscopic frame image;

an image processing unit for processing the navigation virtual endoscopic video and the branch information; and

an image display control unit for displaying image data processed by the image processing unit in a monitor.

6. The apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising:

a memory for temporarily storing a registered navigation virtual endoscopic frame image while the navigation virtual endoscopic video is being generated.

7. The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the image processing unit superimposes the branch information regarding the branch points in the insertion path on the navigation virtual endoscopic video on the basis of the virtual endoscopic frame images captured by the image capture unit.

8. The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the image display control unit displays each piece of branch information processed by the image processing unit as a thumbnail image in the monitor.

9. An endoscope insertion support method for guiding an endoscope into a tubular organ in the body of a subject, the tubular organ dividing into branches, the method comprising the steps of:

generating virtual endoscopic frame images of tubular-organ paths on the basis of tomograms in the subject body;

storing the generated virtual endoscopic frame images;

inputting patient information;

specifying an insertion support start point and an insertion support end point in a model image of a tubular organ based on the input patient information;

capturing the virtual endoscopic frame image corresponding to the insertion support start point and that corresponding to the insertion support end point among the stored virtual endoscopic frame images of the patient on the basis of the input patient information to display the captured virtual endoscopic frame images in the monitor;

temporarily registering in a memory each displayed virtual endoscopic frame image, on which an insertion target marker is superimposed, as a registered frame image to be included in a navigation virtual endoscopic video and further registering positional information of the insertion target marker as branch information regarding a branch point in an insertion path, the temporal registration in the memory being repeated until a registered frame image to be included in the navigation virtual endoscopic video is obtained in a position just before the insertion support end point; and

storing the registered frame images corresponding to the desired number stored in the memory and all of the virtual endoscopic frame images in the tubular-organ path, to which the registered frame images corresponding to the desired number are assigned, as the navigation virtual endoscopic video in an image storage unit.

10. The method according to claim 9, further comprising a step of:

deleting a registered frame image to be included in the navigation virtual endoscopic video temporarily registered in the memory, the branch information regarding a branch point in the insertion path being superimposed on the registered frame image.