Catheter Monitoring in Intelligent Endovascular Navigation Systems: Interactive Simulations and Mixed Reality for Enhanced Navigational Awareness
This work provides a proof-of-concept for combining biomechanical simulation with mixed reality to enhance navigational awareness in endovascular interventions, but the approach is incremental and limited to in vitro testing.
The authors developed a framework integrating real-time catheter shape reconstruction, interactive simulations, and mixed reality to monitor catheter-vessel interactions during endovascular navigation. In vitro validation showed median displacement errors below 2.33 mm and stable Hololens 2 rendering at 35-40 fps, though simulation ran slower than real time (12-45% overhead).
Purpose: Developing and testing a framework that integrates real-time catheter shape reconstruction, interactive simulations, and mixed reality visualization to enable accurate monitoring of catheter-vessel interactions during endovascular navigation. Methods: A finite element model (FEM) of the venous pathway from the right femoral vein to the inferior vena cava was generated from computed tomography data and implemented into an interactive simulation. Catheter motion was imposed as boundary condition, and catheter-vessel contact was modeled with a Lagrange multiplier formulation to compute vessel deformation. The framework was tested in-vitro using a sensorized catheter with Fiber Bragg Grating and electromagnetic sensors as it was advanced through a silicone replica of the vascular anatomy. Real-time sensor read-outs fed the simulation, and the updated catheter and vessel geometries were streamed to Hololens 2. The performance and accuracy of FEM-computed vessel wall displacement were validated against experimental ground-truth obtained via stereo frames triangulation. Results: The simulated time exceeded the real temporal extent by 12% during initial navigation and by 45% when the catheter reached the most tortuous portion. Hololens 2 rendering remained stable at 35-40 frames per second. The median relative displacement error between FEM-computed and ground-truth vessel wall displacements remained below 1 mm and 2.33 mm for these two phases, respectively. Conclusion: The study demonstrates the feasibility of integrating interactive biomechanical simulation with real-time sensor data to enable continuous monitoring of catheter-vessel interactions, with mixed reality visualization serving as a user interface to support operator decision-making.