SCATh Workshop in Graz

SCATh (Smart CATheterization) is an EU FP7 project, led by KU Leuven, spanning across the whole continent, and focusing on the development of advanced navigation techniques for intravascular procedures.

The project is half way down the road, and they held an international joint workshop on on New technologies for Computer/Robot Assisted Surgery in Graz, this week. There were many great people attending, great keynotes, and a lot of old and new friends. The proceedings is open access, with topics reaching a long beyond catheters (excerpts): 

• Precision experiments on a comanipulated robotic system for use in retinal surgery
• Technology assessment for intravascular vision through the blood
• A structural and fluid dynamic approach to investigate a new angioplasty balloon dedicated to bifurcation lesions
• Multi-robotic approach for keyhole neurosurgery: the ROBOCAST project
• Laparoscopic-navigated liver resection and ablation
• Catheter tip localization using IVUS sensor
• Damage assessment in arterial clamping
• Correction of the systematic distortions caused by metallic objects in electromagnetic tracking systems
• Minimally invasive surgical training
• Anatomical model parameterization of the aorta for real-time VR environment
• Intraoperative tumor localization in laparoscopic liver surgery
• Towards bilateral teleoperation of a standard electrophysiology catheter
• Intraoperative surface reconstruction and biomechanical modeling for soft tissue registration