Virtual endoscopy vs. real endoscopy: A comparative evaluation

Virtual endoscopy techniques have significant clinical promise for patient screening and may replace some real endoscopic examinations. Visualizations that mimic reality to an acceptable degree are a key factor for physician acceptance of virtual endoscopy. Clinicians must be able to interact with and quickly understand the visualizations. We are studying image generation paradigms and parameters within each paradigm to evaluate the importance of various factors in the clinical utility of virtual endoscopy. By involving clinicians at each step of the study, we seek to better understand the parameters that clinicians find most important, and to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each image generation paradigm.