An Exploration and Planning Tool for Neurosurgical Interventions

In neurosurgical interventions such as tumor resections, surgeons have to cope with several difficulties posed by structures at risk of the respective patient’s brain. A successful surgery is, especially in the most challenging of cases, always preceded by a carefully conducted planning phase to find the safest access path to the lesion. In order to aid physicians in terms of exploring medical datasets a tool was developed that combines many different visualization techniques and suggests a workflow for finding the desired access path. Novel ideas such as an inside out view (3D-Tumor View) were also realized. This paper introduces the reader to the aforementioned program and the concepts that it comprises.