Abstract
One of the most challenging phases in interstitial brachytherapy is the placement of the needles. In these medical procedures, the needles are inserted inside the tissue to guide the positioning of the radioactive sources. The low-dose-rate radioactive sources are placed inside the tissue permanently, whereas a radioactive source in the high-dose-rate brachytherapy is temporarily placed in the desired positions so that the delivery of the prescription dose to the clinical targets can be achieved. Consequently, the precise needle placement directly influences the radiation dose delivery and the treatment outcomes of patients. Any deviation from the desired position of the radioactive sources can cause a suboptimal dose distribution and inadequate tumor coverage. Therefore, it is of significant importance to develop a robust and sophisticated tool that can perform the automatic needle placement with a high level of accuracy for different medical procedures and conditions. In this study, we propose a novel concept for the automatic needle insertion using a new miniature automated robotic system. The mathematical model of this system was presented in detail, allowing the implementation of the model predictive control that can be used to govern the mechanism. The purpose of this approach was to minimize the lateral components of the generalized reactive force which is responsible for the tissue displacement and, consequently, for the needle deflection. The proposed approach was designed to predict and to compensate for the unmeasured disturbances, such as needle deflection or tissue resistance and reactive force, and it was capable of correcting them without waiting until the effect appears at the output of the system causing the needle deviation from the desired positions. The extensive simulation of the system was presented to evaluate the feasibility of the method and the parameters of interest including displacements, system errors and system responses to the change in the environmental conditions.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abolhassani N, Patel R, Moallem M (2004) Trajectory generation for robotic needle insertion in soft tissue. In: Proceedings of the 26th IEEE international conference on engineering in medicine and biology (EMBS), San Francisco CA, USA. pp 2730–2733
Abolhassani N, Patel R, Moallem M (2007) Needle insertion into soft tissue: a survey. Med Eng Phys 29(4):413–431
Alterovitz R, Goldberg K, Pouliot J, Taschereau R, Hsu IC (2003) Sensorless planning for medical needle insertion procedures. In: Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems, Las Vegas, NV, USA. pp 3337–3343
Alterovitz R, Goldberg K, Okamura A (2005) Planning for steerable bevel-tip needle insertion through 2D soft tissue with obstacles. In: Proceedings of IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Barcelona, Spain. pp 1640–1645
Asadian A, Patel RV, Kermani MR (2011) A distributed model for needle-tissue friction in percutaneous interventions. In: Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Shanghai, China. pp 1896–1901
Buzurovic I et al (2008) Real-time control strategy for collision avoidance and seed deposition in brachytherapy robotic system. Int J Comput Assist Radiol Surg 3:30–34
Buzurovic I, Podder T, Yan K, Hu Y, Valicenti R, Dicker A, Yu Y (2008) Parameter optimization for brachytherapy robotic needle insertion and seed deposition. Med Phys 35(6):2865
Buzurovic I, Podder TK, Yu Y (2008) Force prediction and tracking for image-guided robotic system using neural network approach. In: Proceedings of IEEE biomedical circuits and systems conference (BioCAS), Baltimore MA, USA. pp 41–44
Buzurovic I, Podder TK, Yu Y (2010) Prediction control for brachytherapy robotic system. J Robot 2010(1):1–10
Buzurovic I, Debeljkovic D (2010) A geometric approach to the investigation of the dynamics of constrained robotic systems. In: Proceedings of IEEE international symposium on intelligent systems and informatics (SYSI), Subotica, Serbia. pp 133–138
Buzurovic I, Podder TK, Yu Y (2012) Robotic systems for radiation therapy. In: Dutta A (ed) Robotic systems—applications control and programming. InTech, Rijeka, pp 85–106
Baruh H (1998) Analytical dynamics. McGraw Hill, New York
Cepek J, Chronik BA, Lindner U, Trachtenberg J, Davidson SRH, Bax J, Fenster A (2013) A system for MRI-guided transperineal delivery of needles to the prostate for focal therapy. Med Phys 40(1):1–15
Chentanez N, Alterovitz R, Ritchie D, Cho L, Hauser KK, Goldberg K, O’Brien JF (2009) Interactive simulation of surgical needle insertion and steering. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, vol 28, no 3. pp 88:1–10
Chui CK, Teoh SH, Ong CJ, Anderson JH, Sakuma I (2006) Integrative modeling of liver organ for simulation of flexible needle insertion. In: Proceedings of the 9th international conference on control automation robotics and vision (ICARCV), Singapore. pp 1–6
Crouch JR, Schneider CM, Wainer J, Okamura AM (2005) Velocity-dependent model for needle insertion in soft tissue. In: Proceedings of the 2005 medical image computing and computer-assisted intervention (MICCAI 2005). pp 624–632
DiMaio SP, Salcudean SE (2002) Simulated interactive needle insertion. In: Proceedings of haptic interfaces for virtual environment and teleoperator systems (HAPTICS), Orlando FL, USA. pp 344–351
DiMaio SP, Salcudean SE (2003) Needle insertion modeling and simulation. IEEE Trans Robot Autom 19(5):864–875
DiMaio SP, Salcudean SE (2005) Interactive simulation of needle insertion models. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 52(7):1167–1179
Fichtinger G, Burdette EC, Tanacs A, Patriciu A, Mazilu D, Whitcomb LL, Stoianovic D (2006) Robotically assisted prostate brachytherapy with transrectal ultrasound guidance—phantom experiments. Brachytherapy 5:14–26
Holden MS, Ungi T, Sargent D, McGraw RC, Fichtinger G (2012) Surgical motion characterization in simulated needle insertion procedures. In: Proceedings of SPIE medical imaging: image-guided procedures, robotic interventions, and modeling, vol 8316
Khadem M, Fallahi B, Rossa C, Sloboda RS, Usmani N, Tavakoli M (2015) A mechanics-based model for simulation and control of flexible needle insertion in soft tissue. In: Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Seattle, USA. pp 2264–2269
Kobayashi Y, Suzuki M, Kato A, Hatano M, Konishi K, Hashizume M, Fujie MG (2012) Enhanced targeting in breast tissue using a robotic tissue preloading-based needle insertion system. IEEE Trans Robot Autom 28(3):710–722
Lin A, Trejos AL, Patel RV, Malthaner RA (2008) Robot-assisted minimally invasive brachytherapy for lung cancer. Telesurgery. pp 35–52
McGill CS, Schwartz JA, Moore JZ, McLaughlin PW, Shih AJ (2012) Effects of insertion speed and trocar stiffness on the accuracy of needle position for brachytherapy. Med Phys 39:1811–1817
Meirovitch L (2001) Fundamentals of vibrations. McGraw Hill, New York
Meltsner MA, Ferrier NJ, Thomadsen BR (2007) Observations on rotating needle insertions using a brachytherapy robot. Phys Med Biol 52:6027–6037
Misra S, Reed KB, Schafer BW, Ramesh KT, Okamura AM (2010) Mechanics of flexible needles robotically steered through soft tissue. Int J Robot Res 29(13):1640–1660
Moerland MA, Van den Bosch MR, Lagerburg V, Battermann JJ, Van Vulpen M, Lagendijk JJW (2008) An MRI scanner compatible implant robot for prostate brachytherapy. Brachytherapy 7(2):100
Nath R, Anderson LL, Meli JA, Olch AJ, Stitt JA, Williamson JF (1997) Code of practice for brachytherapy physics: report of the AAPM radiation therapy committee task group No. 56. Med Phys 24(10):1557–1598
O’Leary MD, Simone C, Washio T, Yoshinaka K, Okamura AM (2003) Robotic needle insertion: effects of friction and needle geometry. In: Proceedings of IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Taipei, Taiwan. pp 1774–1780
Okamura AM, Simone C, O’Leary MD (2004) Force modeling for needle insertion into soft tissue. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 51(10):1707–1716
Podder T, Buzurovic I, Yu Y (2010) Multichannel robot for image-guided brachytherapy. In: Proceedings of the 10th IEEE international conference on bioinformatics and bioengineering (BIBE), Philadelphia PA, USA. pp 209–213
Roesthuis RJ, van de Berg NJ, van den Dobbelsteen JJ, Misra S (2015) Modeling and steering of a novel actuated-tip needle through a soft-tissue simulant using Fiber Bragg Grating sensors. In: Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Seattle, USA. pp 2283–2289
Salcudean SE, Prananta TD, Morris WJ, Spadinger I (2008) Robotic needle guide for prostate brachytherapy. In: IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Pasadena CA, USA. pp 2975–2981
Siebert FA, Hirt M, Niehoff P, Kovács G (2004) Imaging of implant needles for real-time HDR-brachytherapy prostate treatment using biplane ultrasound transducers. Med Phys 36(8):3406–3412
Simone C, Okamura AM (2002) Modeling of needle insertion forces for robot-assisted percutaneous therapy. In: Proceedings of IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Washington DC, USA. pp 2085–2091
Stoianovici D, Cleary K, Patriciu A, Mazilu D, Stanimir A, Craciunoiu N, Watson V, Kavoussi L (2003) AcuBot: a robot for radiological percutaneous interventions. IEEE Trans Robot Autom 19:927–930
Swensen JP, Cowan NJ (2012) Torsional dynamics compensation enhances robotic control of tip-steerable needles. In: Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Saint Paul, USA. pp 1601–1606
Theodore RJ, Ghosal A (1995) Comparison of the assumed modes and finite element models for flexible multilink manipulators. Int J Robot Res 14(2):91–111
Vrooijink GJ, Abayazid M, Misra S (2013) Real-time three-dimensional flexible needle tracking using two-dimensional ultrasound. In: Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Karlsruhe, Germany. pp 1688–1693
Wedlick TR, Okamura AM (2012) Characterization of robotic needle insertion and rotation in artificial and ex vivo tissues. In: Proceedings of IEEE/RAS-EMBS international conference on biomedical robotics and biomechatronics (BioRob), Roma, Italy. pp 62–68
Wedlick TR, Lin DJ, Okamura AM (2013) Tissue fixation by suction increases the accuracy of robotic needle insertion. In: Proceedings of IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Karlsruhe, Germany. pp 1694–1699
Wan G, Wei Z, Gardi L, Downey D, Fenster A (2005) Brachytherapy needle deflection evaluation and correction. Med Phys 32(4):902–909
Wei Z, Wan G, Gardi L, Mills G, Downey D, Fenster A (2004) Robot-assisted 3D-TRUS guided prostate brachytherapy: system integration and validation. Med Phys 31:539–548
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Buzurovic, I.M., Salinic, S., Orio, P.F. et al. A novel approach to an automated needle insertion in brachytherapy procedures. Med Biol Eng Comput 56, 273–287 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-017-1686-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-017-1686-y