Device and Method for Tracking the Position of an Endoscope within a Patient's Body

Abstract

Systems and methods of tracking the position of an endoscope within a patient's body during an endoscopic procedure is disclosed. The devices and methods include determining a position of the endoscope within the patient in the endoscope's coordinate system, capturing in an image fiducial markers attached to the endoscope by an external optical tracker, transforming the captured fiducial markers from the endoscope's coordinate system to the optical tracker's coordinate system, projecting a virtual image of the endoscope on a model of the patient's organ, and projecting or displaying the combined image.

We claim: 
     
         1 . An endoscope system having an endoscope handle and an endoscope body adapted to be inserted into a gastrointestinal tract of a patient, the system comprising:
 a plurality of orientation markers positioned on said endoscope handle, wherein said orientation markers are distributed around a circumference of said endoscope handle;   a plurality of sensors positioned at different locations longitudinally along an external surface of the endoscope body, wherein each of said plurality of sensors is adapted to generate first orientation data;   one or more cameras positioned external to said patient and adapted to detect one or more of said plurality of orientation markers and generate second orientation data; and   a controller adapted to receive said first orientation data and second orientation data and generate data indicative of a position of said endoscope body within said gastrointestinal tract of the patient.   
     
     
         2 . The endoscope system of  claim 1 , wherein the data indicative of a position of said endoscope body includes positions of all of the endoscope body that has entered into the gastrointestinal tract of the patient. 
     
     
         3 . The endoscope system of  claim 1 , wherein the sensors are distributed longitudinally along a length of the endoscope body and are separated by a predefined distance of at least 0.1 mm. 
     
     
         4 . The endoscope system of  claim 1 , wherein the controller is adapted to generate an image of said endoscope body based upon data indicative of a position of said endoscope body. 
     
     
         5 . The endoscope system of  claim 4 , wherein the controller is further adapted to orient said image by performing a translation of an orientation of the endoscope to a coordinate system defining a position of said patient and applying said translation to the said image. 
     
     
         6 . The endoscope system of  claim 5 , wherein the controller is further adapted to overlay said oriented image onto an image of a portion of said patient's gastrointestinal tract to generate an oriented, overlaid image of said endoscope body. 
     
     
         7 . The endoscope system of  claim 1 , wherein the first orientation data is indicative of a position of the endoscope body relative to an endoscope coordinate system. 
     
     
         8 . The endoscope system of  claim 1 , wherein the second orientation data is indicative of a position of the endoscope handle relative to a patient coordinate system. 
     
     
         9 . The endoscope system of  claim 6  further comprising a projector adapted to receive the oriented, overlaid image of said endoscope body from the controller and project it onto the patient. 
     
     
         10 . The endoscope system of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of orientation markers comprise spheres placed on handle of the endoscope, each sphere having a diameter ranging from 0.5 to 2 cm. 
     
     
         11 . The endoscope system of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of orientation markers comprise pinpoint-sized laser beams. 
     
     
         12 . The endoscope system of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of orientation markers are made of a material that reflects or emits infra-red light. 
     
     
         13 . The endoscope system of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of sensors comprise one or more of accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers and stripes that measure the bending and twisting of an insertion tube of the endoscope by one or more of electro-optic and mechanic methods. 
     
     
         14 . The endoscope system of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of sensors comprise one or more of inductive sensors, capacitive sensors, capacitive displacement sensors, photoelectric sensors, magnetic sensors, and infrared sensors placed along one of an elongated shaft and an insertion tube of the endoscope, wherein each of the sensors corresponds to a unique identifier, based on the location of the sensor along the insertion tube. 
     
     
         15 . The endoscope system of  claim 1  further comprising a distance sensor adapted to detect distance markers positioned at different locations longitudinally along an external surface of the endoscope body and generate distance data, wherein the distance sensor comprises one or more of a depth sensor and a touch sensor for providing a distance the insertion tube has travelled inside the gastrointestinal tract of a patient. 
     
     
         16 . The endoscope system of  claim 1  wherein two stereo-calibrated cameras are adapted to generate second orientation data comprising 3D location of the fiducials in the cameras' own coordinate system by triangulation. 
     
     
         17 . A method of tracking the position of an endoscope within a patient's organ during an endoscopic procedure, the method comprising:
 determining a position of the endoscope within the organ in the endoscope's coordinate system;   capturing in an image a plurality of fiducial markers by an external optical tracker;   transforming the captured fiducial markers from the endoscope's coordinate system to the optical tracker's coordinate system;   detecting the captured fiducial markers on a model of the patient's organ; and   projecting the image of the endoscope with the fiducial markers upon an image of the patient's organ with the fiducial markers.   
     
     
         18 . The method as claimed in  claim 17  wherein the external optical tracker is a camera placed above the endoscope performing the endoscopic procedure. 
     
     
         19 . The method as claimed in  claim 17  wherein the captured fiducial markers are detected on a model of the patient's organ by using an object detection algorithm. 
     
     
         20 . The method as claimed in  claim 17  wherein the captured fiducial markers are detected on a model of the patient's organ by using the Hough Transform. 
     
     
         21 . The method as claimed in  claim 17  further comprising casting the position of the endoscope directly on the patient's body by using a calibrated projector. 
     
     
         22 . An endoscopy system for tracking the position of an endoscope within a patient's organ during an endoscopic procedure, the system comprising at least an endoscope coupled with a plurality of fiducial markers; an optical tracker placed external to the endoscope and a computing unit for at least processing the images captured by the optical tracker, the optical tracker capturing in an image the plurality of fiducial markers and the endoscope during the endoscopic procedure, the computing unit transforming the captured fiducial markers from the endoscope's coordinate system to the optical tracker's coordinate system and projecting the image of the endoscope with the fiducial markers upon an image of the patient's organ with the fiducial markers. 
     
     
         23 . The system as claimed in  claim 22  wherein the external optical tracker is a camera placed above the endoscope performing the endoscopic procedure. 
     
     
         24 . The system as claimed in  claim 22  wherein the captured fiducial markers are transformed from the endoscope's coordinate system to the optical tracker's coordinate system by using an object detection algorithm. 
     
     
         25 . The system as claimed in  claim 22  wherein the captured fiducial markers are transformed from the endoscope's coordinate system to the optical tracker's coordinate system by using the Hough Transform. 
     
     
         26 . The system as claimed in  claim 22  further comprising a calibrated projector for casting the position of the endoscope directly on the patient's body.