Video Processing for the Evaluation of Vascular Dynamics in Neurovascular Interventions

An arteriovenous malformation (AVM) is an abnormal collection of blood vessels which causes blood to travel from arteries to veins through an abnormal twisted network of vessels. This network has an elevated risk of rupture, which can lead to permanent disability and death if the rupture occurs in the brain. The gold standard treatment for AVM is surgical resection, and it is crucial to know which vessels are bringing blood towards and away from the AVM. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to know this by looking at the surgical scene. The primary limitations of current methods to address this are requirements for extra hardware and a lack of intraoperative blood flow information. Here, preliminary results are presented for two video-based methods to provide this important clinical information. Videos from routinely-used surgical microscopes are enhanced and analyzed to determine the identity of vessels of interest and guide AVM resection surgery