Preparing the anatomical model for ablation of unresectable liver tumor.

Nowadays the best treatment of the primary and secondary hepatic tumor is surgical resection, but only 5-15% of all patient with hepatocellular carcinoma and 20-25% of all patients with liver metastases are indicated for resection. In these cases some kind of ablation and other technique could be used.

To present the methodology of preparing the anatomical model for ablation of unresectable liver tumor.

The presented method is based on abdomen computed tomography (CT) dynamic examination. Three methods of segmentation are used: rolling vector for liver volume, modified Frangi filter for liver vessels, and fuzzy expert system with initial region-of-interest anisotropic filtration for liver metastases. Segmentation results are the input data for creating 3D anatomical models in the form of B-spline curves and surfaces performing the surface global interpolation algorithm. A graphical user interface for presentation and evaluation of models, presented in color against DICOM images in grayscale, is designed and implemented.

The proposed approach was tested on 20 abdominal CT obtained from the Department of Clinical Radiology of Silesian Medical University. The lack of a "gold standard" provides for the correction of the results.

Preparation of the anatomical model is one of the important early stages of the use of image-based navigation systems. This process could not take place in a fully automatic manner and verification of the results obtained is performed by the radiologist. Using the above anatomical model in surgical workflow is presented.