Abstract: Bronchoscopists use X‐ray fluoroscopy to guide bronchoscopes to the lesion to be biopsied without any kind of incisions. Reducing exposure to X‐ray is important for both patients and doctors but alternatives like electromagnetic navigation require specific equipment and increase the cost of the clinical procedure. We propose a guiding system based on the extraction of airway centers from intra‐operative videos. Such anatomical landmarks could be
matched to the airway centerline extracted from a pre‐planned CT to indicate the best path to the lesion. We present an extraction of lumen centers
from intra‐operative videos based on tracking of maximal stable regions of energy maps.

Abstract: Bronchoscopy biopsy can be used to diagnose lung cancer without risking complications of other interventions like transthoracic needle aspiration. During bronchoscopy, the clinician has to navigate through the bronchial tree to the target lesion. A main drawback is the difficulty to check whether the exploration is following the correct path. The usual guidance using fluoroscopy implies repeated radiation of the clinician, while alternative systems (like electromagnetic navigation) require specific equipment that increases intervention costs. We propose to compute the navigated path using anatomical landmarks extracted from the sole analysis of videobronchoscopy images. Such landmarks allow matching the current exploration to the path previously planned on a CT to indicate clinician whether the planning is being correctly followed or not. We present a feasibility study of our landmark based CT-video matching using bronchoscopic videos simulated on a virtual bronchoscopy interactive interface.