Autonomous medical needle steering in vivo

Area of Science:

• Medical robotics
• Interventional medicine
• Surgical navigation

Background:

• Needle-based procedures are crucial for medical diagnosis and treatment.
• Navigating needles in vivo is challenging due to anatomical obstacles, tissue motion, and uncertainty.
• Autonomous robotic systems offer potential solutions for enhanced patient care and safety.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and demonstrate an autonomous medical robot for in vivo needle navigation around obstacles.
• To achieve accurate targeting in living tissue for procedures like lung biopsy.
• To compare the robotic system's accuracy against standard manual techniques.

Main Methods:

• A medical robot utilizing a laser-patterned, flexible, steerable needle for curvilinear trajectories.
• Autonomous navigation algorithms accounting for obstacles, tissue interaction uncertainty, and respiratory motion.
• In vivo porcine studies for lung biopsy simulation.

Main Results:

• Successful autonomous needle navigation around anatomical obstacles in living tissue.
• Achieved targeting errors below the radius of clinically relevant lung nodules.
• Demonstrated significantly greater accuracy compared to standard manual bronchoscopy.

Conclusions:

• Autonomous steerable needle robots are feasible and advantageous for in vivo applications.
• This technology can extend physician capabilities, improving patient care in interventional procedures.
• The system shows promise for improving diagnostic accuracy, particularly in lung cancer detection.