Towards Comprehensive CBCT Imaging Pipelines for Real-time Acquisition, Analysis, Interaction and Visualization

CIRCUIT stands for the project "Towards Comprehensive CBCT Imaging Pipelines for Real-time Acquisition, Analysis, Interaction and Visualization".

For several decades, image guidance during medical procedures has been utilized to support radiotherapy and surgery, where treatment plans are adjusted intraoperatively, right before the intervention, based on any detected deviations from the initial scans, e.g., due to tumor growths. Recent years have seen an advance of mobile imaging solutions, that can be repositioned in the room and allow for increased flexibility and cost reduction as these mobile devices can fulfill multiple roles in a hospital setting. The ability to perform scans in the room directly at the patient reduces the time required for interventions, which in turn leads to better patient outcomes.

medPhoton has developed a mobile cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) scanner, the mobile imaging robot Loop-X, that can be repositioned freely in the room / building. It moves on wheels, and the device can robotically adapt its pose to the clinical situation by using its numerous synchronized kinematical axes.

The project vision is to push state-of-the-art towards the next generation of mobile imaging solutions that integrate real-time imaging solutions and effective, intuitive interfaces into a single device to reduce intervention times and radiation exposure, consequently improving patient outcomes. Integrating all aspects of such a pipeline into a single, standalone hardware solution also maximizes flexibility and cost efficiency. The synergy between computer vision (CV) and human-computer interaction (HCI) in this project allows us to move beyond isolated and very specific solutions to form a holistic view of procedures and, consequently, to achieve a comprehensive, powerful real-time scanning pipeline.