School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
Shanghai General Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
Int J Comput Assist Radiol Surg. 2021 Mar;16(3):475-484. doi: 10.1007/s11548-020-02300-1. Epub 2021 Jan 23.
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.
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.
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).
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.
超声（US）引导经皮穿刺技术可实现实时、微创介入治疗，且无需辐射。穿刺针的位置精度直接决定了手术的精度和安全性。对于新手和年轻外科医生来说，通过超声图像引导进行徒手穿刺以达到所需的精度是一项挑战。本工作旨在开发一种机器人系统，以协助外科医生进行高精度的经皮穿刺。
设计了一种 US 引导的穿刺机器人，允许安装和控制针以实现定位和插入。US 探头安装在穿刺机器人内，由被动臂固定。此外，通过一种新的校准方法对穿刺机器人进行校准，以实现机器人和 US 图像之间的坐标变换。该系统允许操作人员在 US 图像上规划穿刺目标和穿刺路径，然后机器人自动进行针插入。进行了五组穿刺实验以验证所提出的机器人系统的有效性和准确性。
在机器人系统的辅助下，针插入的定位和定向精度分别为 0.9±0.29mm 和 0.76±0.34°，与徒手穿刺（1.82±0.51mm 和 2.79±1.32°）相比有所提高。此外，与徒手穿刺（14.28±3.21s 和 1.96±0.68 次针插入）相比，所提出的机器人系统可以减少操作时间和针插入次数（分别为 25.14±6.09s 和一次针插入）。
开发并演示了一种 US 图像引导的经皮穿刺机器人系统。实验结果表明，该系统准确且可行。它可以帮助新手和年轻外科医生提高穿刺操作的准确性。
