  Brachytherapy for localized prostate cancer consists in destroying cancer by
introducing iodine radioactive seeds into the gland through hollow needles. The
planning of the position of the seeds and their introduction into the prostate
is based on intra-operative ultrasound (US) imaging. We propose to optimize the
global quality of the procedure by: i) using 3D US; ii) enhancing US data with
MRI registration; iii) using a specially designed needle-insertion robot,
connected to the imaging data. The imaging methods have been successfully
tested on patient data while the robot accuracy has been evaluated on a
realistic deformable phantom.
