In vivo comparison of two navigation systems for abdominal percutaneous needle intervention

Purpose: To compare the accuracy of a Kinect-Optical navigation system with an electromagnetic (EM) navigation system for percutaneous liver needle intervention. Materials and methods: Five beagles with nine artificial tumors were used for validation. The Veran IG4 EM navigation system and a custom-made Kinect-Optical navigation system were used. Needle insertions into each tumor were conducted with these two guidance methods. The target positioning error (TPE) and the time cost of the puncture procedures were evaluated. Results: A total of 18 needle insertions were performed to evaluate the navigation accuracy of the two guidance approaches. The targeting error was 6.78 ± 3.22 mm and 8.72 ± 3.5 mm for the Kinect-Optical navigation system and the EM navigation system, respectively. There is no statistically significant difference in the TPE between the Kinect-Optical navigation system and the EM navigation system (p = 0.229). The processing time with the Kinect-Optical system (10 min) is similar to that of the Veran IG4 system (12 min). Conclusions: The accuracy of the Kinect-Optical navigation system is comparable to that of the EM navigation system.