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Ultrasound-guided needle insertion robotic system for percutaneous puncture

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International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Ultrasound (US)-guided percutaneous puncture technology can realize real-time, minimally invasive interventional therapy without radiation. The location accuracy of the puncture needle directly determines the precision and safety of the operation. It is a challenge for novices and young surgeons to perform a free-hand puncture guided by the ultrasound images to achieve the desired accuracy. This work aims to develop a robotic system to assist surgeons to perform percutaneous punctures with high precision.

Methods

An US-guided puncture robot was designed to allow the mounting and control of the needle to achieve localization and insertion. The US probe fitted within the puncture robot was held by a passive arm. Moreover, the puncture robot was calibrated with a novel calibration method to achieve coordinate transformation between the robot and the US image. The system allowed the operators to plan the puncture target and puncture path on US images, and the robot performed needle insertion automatically. Five groups of puncture experiments were performed to verify the validity and accuracy of the proposed robotic system.

Results

Assisted by the robotic system, the positioning and orientation accuracies of the needle insertion were 0.9 ± 0.29 mm and 0.76 ± 0.34°, respectively. These are improved compared with the results obtained with the free-hand puncture (1.82 ± 0.51 mm and 2.79 ± 1.32°, respectively). Moreover, the proposed robotic system can reduce the operation time and number of needle insertions (14.28 ± 3.21 s and one needle insertion, respectively), compared with the free-hand puncture (25.14 ± 6.09 s and 1.96 ± 0.68 needle insertions, respectively).

Conclusion

A robotic system for percutaneous puncture guided by US images was developed and demonstrated. The experimental results indicate that the proposed system is accurate and feasible. It can assist novices and young surgeons to perform the puncture operation with increased accuracy.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.cn) for English language editing.

Funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number 51575343).

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Author notes

  1. Shihang Chen and Fang Wang have contributed equally to this study.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

    Shihang Chen & Yanping Lin

  2. Shanghai General Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

    Fang Wang & Qiusheng Shi

  3. Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

    Yanli Wang

Authors
  1. Shihang Chen
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  2. Fang Wang
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  3. Yanping Lin
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  4. Qiusheng Shi
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  5. Yanli Wang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yanping Lin.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and animals rights

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. No animal experiments were performed in this study.

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Cite this article

Chen, S., Wang, F., Lin, Y. et al. Ultrasound-guided needle insertion robotic system for percutaneous puncture. Int J CARS 16, 475–484 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-020-02300-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-020-02300-1

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