The Direct Oblique Method: A New Gold Standard for Bronchoscopic Navigation That is Superior to Automatic Methods

Background:
The purpose of this study was to identify bronchi on computed tomographic (CT) images, manual analysis is more accurate than automatic methods. Nonetheless, manual bronchoscopic navigation is not preferred as it involves mentally reconstructing a route to a bronchial target by interpreting 2-dimensional CT images. Here, we established the direct oblique method (DOM), a form of manual bronchoscopic navigation that does not necessitate mental reconstruction, and compared it with automatic virtual bronchoscopic navigation (VBN).
Methods:
Routes were calculated to 47 identical targets using 2 automatic VBNs (LungPoint and VINCENT-BFsim) and the DOM, using 3 general application CT viewers (Aquarius, Synapse Vincent, and OsiriX). Results of all analyses were compared.
Results:
The DOM drew routes to more targets than the VBNs [94% (the DOM on any viewer) vs. 49% (LungPoint) vs. 62% (VINCENT-BFsim), P

Source: Journal of Bronchology and Interventional Pulmonology - September 22, 2018 Category: Respiratory Medicine Tags: Original Investigations Source Type: research