Deformation Correction in Laparoscopic Liver Surgical Navigation Using Point Cloud Completion and Biomechanical Model

In the minimally invasive liver resection surgery, deformation estimation of liver is required to correct the preoperative virtual model to match the intraoperative scenarios, in which the liver deforms due to respiration and surgical operations. Existing methods on liver deformation estimation often struggle to achieve high accuracy when the intraoperative liver surface is limited in size. To overcome the challenge of sparse intraoperative point cloud data and improve the accuracy of liver deformation predictions, this paper introduces an innovative method for estimating liver deformation. This method comprises two main components: intraoperative point cloud completion and liver deformation estimation. Intraoperative point cloud completion uses registration techniques to integrate preoperative topological structures into the intraoperative phase. Liver deformation estimation combines optimization control with biomechanical modeling to accurately align the preoperative liver model with its intraoperative counterpart. Comparative and ablation experiments, as well as investigations into the impact of different completion ratios, were conducted. The results demonstrate that this method effectively utilizes preoperative liver geometric features to enhance intraoperative visualization, even with limited intraoperative data. Additionally, the opti-mization control method provides reliable deformation estimates with acceptable accuracy. This study offers new insights and methodologies for the development of augmented reality surgical navigation systems, contributing to the computer assisted liver surgey.