Design and fabrication of a robotic mechanism for remote steering and positioning of interventional devices.

BACKGROUND

Recently, robotic systems have been introduced as a method for assisting endovascular interventional procedures. A few commercial and research solutions are available. In a survey it was found that none of the current systems satisfied all basic design requirements set forth for a good robot-assisted therapy platform.

METHODS

A human motion analysis study was performed to identify design specifications for safe motion and force limits for endovascular surgery. Based on design requirements from surveyed systems and motion analysis, a new, teleoperated, haptically enabled system called System for Endovascular Teleoperated Access (SETA) was constructed. SETA is capable of simultaneously manipulating any guidewire and catheter in the range of 0.014-0.13 inches.

RESULTS

SETA's slave was evaluated for precision positioning, using in vitro vascular phantoms. It was also evaluated by a cohort of neurovascular surgeons and fellows (n = 8), using the VIST vascular simulator. A qualitative survey of the participants and a quantitative analysis of metrics procedure time and contrast used found that SETA was equivalent to manual intervention on this platform.

CONCLUSIONS

SETA provided good performance in the in vitro studies, and will soon be evaluated in a series of in vivo animal model studies.