Surgical cartographic navigation system for endoscopic bypass grafting.

Endoscopic bypass grafting with the da Vinci system is still challenging and needs high level of experience and skill of the surgeon. Therefore, it is necessary to support the surgeon with enhanced vision and augmented reality. The augmentation of the patient model into the view of the endoscope is a direct approach to enhance support. The results of a preclinical study are shown in this paper. The method applied is suitable for endoscopic bypass grafting and in general applicable to minimal invasive surgery. The system was designed as an open architecture to facilitate easy transfer of the methodology into other surgical domain applications.