Patent ID: 6731966
Filing Date: 2004-05-04
Classification: A61B

Abstract:
A system for guiding a surgical instrument into a spatial relationship with a lesion, comprising:a data translation system for translating a set of data points representative of a position of the lesion in at least two two-dimensional planes into a set of three-dimensional coordinates representative of the position of the lesion in three-dimensional space, a tracking system including a sensor positioned on the surgical instrument to generate tracking signals derived from the sensor for identifying the position of the surgical instrument in three dimensional space, and a representation system for producing a representation of the position of the surgical instrument and the position of the lesion in three dimensional space relative to each other, as a function of the tracking signals derived from the sensor and the set of three-dimensional coordinates produced by the data translation system, whereby the placement of the surgical instrument into the anatomic relationship with the lesion is guided by reference to the representation produced by the representation system.