In-bore prostate transperineal interventions with an MRI-guided parallel manipulator: system development and preliminary evaluation

Robot-assisted minimally-invasive surgery is well recognized as a feasible solution for diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer in humans.

This paper discusses the kinematics of a parallel 4 Degrees-of-Freedom (DOF) surgical manipulator designed for minimally invasive in-bore prostate percutaneous interventions through the patient's perineum.

The proposed manipulator takes advantage of four sliders actuated by MRI-compatible piezoelectric motors and incremental rotary encoders. Errors, mostly originating from the design and manufacturing process, need to be identified and reduced before the robot is deployed in clinical trials.

The manipulator has undergone several experiments to evaluate the repeatability and accuracy (about 1 mm in air (in x or y direction) at the needle's reference point) of needle placement, which is an essential concern in percutaneous prostate interventions.

The acquired results endorse the sustainability, precision and reliability of the manipulator. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The international journal of medical robotics + computer assisted surgery : MRCAS. 2015 Jun 26 [Epub ahead of print]

Sohrab Eslami, Weijian Shang, Gang Li, Nirav Patel, Gregory S Fischer, Junichi Tokuda, Nobuhiko Hata, Clare M Tempany, Iulian Iordachita

Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics (LCSR) at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. , Automation and Interventional Medicine (AIM) Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA. , Automation and Interventional Medicine (AIM) Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA. , Automation and Interventional Medicine (AIM) Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA. , Automation and Interventional Medicine (AIM) Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA. , Surgical Navigation and Robotics Laboratory, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. , Surgical Navigation and Robotics Laboratory, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. , Surgical Navigation and Robotics Laboratory, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. , Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics (LCSR) at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.

PubMed