The SIP-NVC-Wizard. User guidance on segmentation for surgical intervention planning of neurovascular compression

Neurovascular compression syndromes (NVC) result from a compression of the entry/exit zone of cranial nerves by a vessel at the surface of the brainstem. Surgical intervention planning (SIP) for NVC enables a comprehensive spatial understanding of the patient specific anatomy. Specifically, brainstem, vessels and nerves are segmented in NVC SIP. To support segmentation for NVC SIP, we propose a wizardbased user guidance. The SIP-NVC-Wizard guides the user through the patient's individual anatomy and segmentations, and translates the parameter tuning into adequate medical terminology. We were able to show pathological nerve-vessel-contact in ten NVC cases producing results comparable to conventional NVC SIP, and performed a pilot-study to evaluate usability and functionality of the proposed wizard. With the SIP-NVC-Wizard our subjects were able to perform a NVC SIP without any knowledge in image processing. Anatomical beginners showed a steep learning curve. Time was reduced to 34 minutes compared to 1-2 hours for conventional NVC SIP.