Abstract
We present the prototype of an image-guided robotic system for accurate and consistent placement of percutaneous needles in soft-tissue targets under CT guidance inside the gantry of a CT scanner. The couch-mounted system consists of a seven-degrees-of-freedom passive mounting arm, a remote center-of-motion robot, and a motorized needle-insertion device. Single-image-based coregistration of the robot and image space is achieved by stereotactic localization using a miniature version of the BRW head frame built into the radiolucent needle driver. The surgeon plans and controls the intervention in the scanner room on a desktop computer that receives DICOM images from the scanner. The system does not need calibration, employs pure image-based registration, and does not utilize any vendor-specific hardware or software features. In the open air, where there is no needle-tissue interaction, we systematically achieved an accuracy better than 1 mm in hitting targets at 5-8 cm from the fulcrum point. In the phantom, the orientation accuracy was 0.6°, and the distance between the needle tip and the target was 1.04 mm. Experiments indicated that this robotic system is suitable for a variety of percutaneous clinical applications.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 370-383 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Computer Aided Surgery |
Volume | 6 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 1 2001 |
Keywords
- CT guidance
- Image-guided surgery
- Percutaneous needle placement
- Surgical robotics
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Surgery
- Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging