Patent ID: 8116847

Claim:
An interactive method of determining an optimum surgical trajectory for displacing a flexible surgical instrument through the interior of a body of a patient, comprising the steps of: assigning weight values to one or more regions identified in a volumetric scan of a patient, the weight values indicating a degree of preference that a specified region be utilized to receive the flexible surgical instrument in calculating the optimum surgical trajectory; calculating the optimum surgical trajectory between every two non-adjacent regions identified in the volumetric scan of the patient; presenting the optimum surgical trajectory to a user on a display in response to identification of a starting region and a destination region within the volumetric scan of the patient; steering a distal end of the flexible surgical instrument in the interior of the body of a patient; and revising the optimum surgical trajectory presented on the display, essentially in real time, in response to an indicated current position of the flexible surgical instrument changing as a result of user interaction.