Purpose: For many patients with intracranial tumors, accurate surgical resection is a mainstay of their treatment paradigm. During surgical resection, image guidance is used to aid in localization and resection. Intraoperative brain shift can invalidate these guidance systems. One cause of intraoperative brain shift is cavity collapse due to tumor resection, which will be referred to as “debulking.” We developed an imaging-driven finite element model of debulking to create a comprehensive simulation data set to reflect possible intraoperative changes. The objective was to create a method to account for brain shift due to debulking for applications in image-guided neurosurgery. We hypothesized that accounting for tumor debulking in a deformation atlas data framework would improve brain shift predictions, which would enhance image-based surgical guidance.

Approach: This was evaluated in a six-patient intracranial tumor resection intraoperative data set. The brain shift deformation atlas data framework consisted of n  =  756 simulated deformations to account for effects due to gravity-induced and hyperosmotic drug-induced brain shift, which reflects previous developments. An additional complement of n  =  84 deformations involving simulated tumor growth followed by debulking was created to capture observed intraoperative effects not previously included.

Results: In five of six patient cases evaluated, inclusion of debulking mechanics improved brain shift correction by capturing global mass effects resulting from the resected tumor.

Conclusions: These findings suggest imaging-driven brain shift models used to create a deformation simulation data framework of observed intraoperative events can be used to assist in more accurate image-guided surgical navigation in the brain.