User interfaces in computer-assisted and robot-assisted surgery

Jesus Ortiz, Leonardo S. Mattos and Darwin G. Caldwell, IIT, Italy

This presentation will offer a review of the user interfaces used in computer-assisted and robot-assisted surgery. These techniques can be used during the surgery, diagnosis, planning or training. The interfaces used during the surgery try mostly to replicate the vision and control of the classical tools to reduce the learning time, but they offer more precision, safety and reliability. The interfaces used in diagnostic and planning are more focused in visualization, and the ones used for training place the emphasis in the simulation. We analize the user interface used in the da Vinci surgical robot, that is nowadays the most used one and, for that, the main reference from the practical point of view. We also review research works on user interfaces for surgery and other medical fields (for example, ultrasound diagnosis) and other fields, unrelated to medical applications, but that could be applied also to computer-assisted surgery.