Fully Actuated Body-Mounted Robotic System for MRI-Guided Lower Back Pain Injections: Initial Phantom and Cadaver...

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Medical Imaging
• Interventional Procedures

Background:

• Lower back pain injections often require precise guidance.
• Current procedures can be lengthy and involve patient repositioning.
• Real-time Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) offers excellent soft-tissue visualization for guidance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To report the design, integration, and evaluation of a body-mounted robotic system for real-time MRI-guided lower back pain injections.
• To assess the system's accuracy and feasibility for clinical application.
• To streamline the injection procedure and minimize patient movement.

Main Methods:

• Development of a 6-Degrees-of-Freedom (DOF) robot with a 4-DOF needle alignment module and a 2-DOF driver module.
• Integration with an image-based surgical planning module.
• Evaluation using real-time MRI-guided phantom and cadaver studies.

Main Results:

• Phantom study showed mean absolute errors of 1.50±0.68mm for tip position and 1.56±0.93° for needle angle.
• Cadaver study indicated maximum position error <1.90mm and angle error <3.14°.
• The compact, body-mounted design moves with the patient, minimizing motion artifacts.

Conclusions:

• The developed robotic system demonstrates high targeting accuracy for MRI-guided lower back injections.
• The system's design and proposed workflow show feasibility for clinical use.
• This technology has the potential to shorten procedure times and improve patient outcomes.