Active tremor cancellation by a "smart" handheld vitreoretinal microsurgical tool using swept source optical...

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Surgical Technology
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Microsurgery demands high dexterity for precise maneuvers.
• Freehand microsurgery carries inherent risks due to potential instability and tremor.
• Existing tools may not adequately address surgeon hand tremor during critical procedures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel optical coherence tomography-based robotic tool for micromanipulation.
• To assess the capability of the "smart" micromanipulation aided robotic-surgical tool (SMART) in actively suppressing surgeon hand tremor.
• To compare the performance of freehand microsurgery with SMART-assisted microsurgery.

Main Methods:

• Development of a common path, swept source optical coherence tomography-based micromanipulation tool.
• Integration of active tremor suppression technology into the robotic surgical tool.
• Quantitative assessment of surgeon hand tremor and tool tip stability during simulated microsurgical tasks.
• Comparative analysis of surgical target accuracy and tool tip offset maintenance between freehand and SMART-assisted procedures.

Main Results:

• The SMART tool demonstrated active suppression of surgeon hand tremor.
• Enhanced tool tip stabilization was achieved with the SMART system.
• Improvements were observed in the ability to accurately locate surgical targets.
• Better maintenance of tool tip offset distances was recorded during SMART-assisted procedures compared to freehand operations.

Conclusions:

• The developed SMART tool significantly improves precision and stability in microsurgery.
• Active tremor suppression by the SMART tool has the potential to lower surgical risks.
• Robotic assistance with tremor suppression offers a promising advancement for microsurgical interventions.