Spatial orientation in interventional radiology

In interventional radiology, inserting a needle from the skin to the target lesion is a challenging task, because the physician has to estimate the spatial orientation of the needle based on a sequence of two-dimensional radiology images. We wanted to know what kind of visual aids could support the physician in better estimating the orientation of the needle and reduce task load. Therefore, an experiment was conducted in which user interfaces with different visual aids were tested with physicians. Results show that the appropriate combination of visual aids helps to estimate the orientation of the needle more accurately as well as to reduce task load as compared to current clinical practice.