EasyGuide is a Philips product family that has been developed to help surgeons to locate anatomical structures on the basis of patient images acquired before or during surgery. This guidance facilitates minimally invasive therapy, improves accuracy and speed, and reduces risks. Philips Research is supporting EasyGuide by analyses of the accuracy of the entire clinical process, by identification of bottlenecks and by integrating intra-operative imaging techniques into EasyGuide, thus allowing new application fields to be entered. The main application areas currently envisaged for EasyGuide are in neurosurgery, spinal surgery and orthopaedic surgery. There are also opportunities in vascular surgery and radiotherapy.
Guidance occurs through an optical localizer which measures the position of surgical tools.
Once the patient and the pre-operative images have been correlated, the surgical tools can be overlaid on images in real time, enabling the surgeon to see the position and orientation of the tools in relation to the patient's anatomy and pathology. An important part of the research project concentrates on analyses of the accuracy of the entire clinical process and the identification of bottlenecks. The improvement of geometrical accuracy is also furthered. The goal is to update pre-operative images for changes which have occurred, either as a result of surgery itself or because of anatomical flexiblity. Innovation in this field relies on a thorough understanding of all aspects of medical imaging, together with an extensive know-how of radiological and surgical procedures and workflow.