Improved Colon Navigation for Efficient Polyp Detection in Virtual Colonoscopy

Colon cancer is a leading cause of death in the world and its early diagnosis highly increases the chances of survival. Virtual colonoscopy is a widely spreading technology that is used for polyp detection, the primary cause of colon cancer. This paper revisits an existing virtual colonoscopy technique, called Fly-over. It splits the colon into two halves along its centerline and assigns a camera to each half for navigation. While cutting the colon along its centerline increases the possibility of having missed polyps, the technique is revisited here and the cutting framework is changed, which improved the rate of detection. Clinical validation was assessed by testing the navigation technique on several cases of real and synthetic challenging polyps versus other techniques. Fly-over technique provides efficient polyp detection of up to 100% with the least distortion rate.