May 2003

Georgetown University and Kitware awarded Phase I STTR from NIH for open-source image guided surgery toolkit

Minimally invasive abdominal interventions are rapidly increasing in popularity. This is due to the development of new interventional techniques-and the desire on the part of both clinicians and patients to decrease trauma. Minimally invasive interventions are done using catheters, needles, or other instruments that are introduced, targeted, and manipulated without the benefit of the direct visibility afforded by the usual surgical opening. This greatly minimizes trauma to the patient, but severely restricts the physician's view of the underlying anatomy. Image-guided surgery, however, circumvents this encumbrance. It uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography (CT) scans to guide minimally invasive surgical procedures. The scans are typically taken before and during surgery.

Kitware will team with Dr. Kevin Cleary and his staff at Georgetown University to develop software tools to support the tracking and control of image-guided surgical instrumentation. The software will be created under open-source license to encourage the dissemination of this technology, and to create a technology core that will be leveraged in future products and applications of the technology.

Kitware, Inc. is a small, privately held company offering consulting, products, and services in the areas of 3D graphics, visualization, image processing, and volume rendering. Kitware provides support and training for the widely used Visualization Toolkit system. Kitware is also developing other open source and proprietary software including the National Library of Medicine Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit. Kitware is located in the Tech Valley region of New York State.