A software tool for planning and evaluation of non-linear trajectories for minimally invasive lateral skull base surgery

The research project MUKNO II investigates the feasibility of non-linear access paths for minimally invasive lateral skull base surgery to optimize safety distance to risk structures and direction of insertion vectors. For this purpose a new surgical planning tool for manual as well as automatic nonholonomic path planning was developed. In ten 3D surface models of the temporal bone region trajectories to specific target points were manually created. The distance to critical structures and the curvature were evaluated along the course of these trajectories. First experiments with automatic nonholonomic planning showed the applicability of the implemented motion planner in the complex dense environment.