Intelligent support for surgeons in the operating room

Modern technology gives surgeons the possibility to plan operations using complex 3D information tools providing data integration, analysis and visualization. However, in the operating room, most of the tools are not at hand. It might be useful to access the data and to visualize certain surgical procedures during the actual surgery. We investigate such situations and look for novel solutions for intra-operative support for surgeons to access 3D information: what they need, when they need it. We integrate medical image processing, cognitive modeling and human- computer interaction in order to anticipate the surgeons' needs. We address three issues for developing such systems: how to identify what information the surgeon needs; how to adapt pre- and intra-procedure information to the surgical situation; how to present the relevant information to the surgeon. This paper presents the vision and preliminary results of a collaborative research project.