Preliminary in-theatre experience with the VISLAN, a video based surgical guidance system

A prototype video based surgical guidance system (VISLAN) has been used in parallel with existing equipment in five clinical cases at two neurosurgical units. Most of the components including skin surface extraction, registration between the real patient and the preoperative images, overlay of a preoperatively planned cranial window, and tracking of a passively illuminated hand held localiser were tested. Technically the performance was satisfactory and the system was received very positively by the surgeons.