Marker Removal for C-arm Pose Estimation based Bronchoscope Navigation using Image Inpainting

Using marker-based C-arm pose estimation during bronchoscopy in combination with a preoperative CT segmentation of the bronchial tree, the 3D spatial position of the bronchoscope tip inside the airways can be deter-mined. Naturally, the markers used for pose estimation appear on the fluoroscopy images, which can be disturbing for the physician`s view. To address this issue, we deploy inpainting to remove the reprojected markers from the fluoroscopy. The method was applied to phantom and cadaver images acquired from almost 50 different C-arm poses in total. Pose estimation was successful in 97, 5 of the test cases. Employing our inpainting method to these cases resulted in thorough removal of all markers in the fluoroscopy thereby ostensibly preserving anatomy structures.