We present a novel robotic approach for the rapid, minimally invasive treatment of Intracerebral Hemorrhage (ICH), in which a hematoma or blood clot arises in the brain parenchyma. We present a custom image-guided robot system that delivers a steerable cannula into the lesion and aspirates it from the inside. The steerable cannula consists of an initial straight tube delivered in a manner similar to image-guided biopsy (and which uses a commercial image guidance system), followed by the sequential deployment of multiple individual precurved elastic tubes. Rather than deploying the tubes simultaneously, as has been done in nearly all prior studies, we deploy the tubes one at a time, using a compilation of their individual workspaces to reach desired points inside the lesion. This represents a new paradigm in active cannula research, defining a novel procedure-planning problem. A design that solves this problem can potentially save many lives by enabling brain decompression both more rapidly and less invasively than is possible through the traditional open surgery approach. Experimental results include a comparison of the simulated and actual workspaces of the prototype robot, and an accuracy evaluation of the system.

Date Published: 8 March 2013
PDF: 5 pages
Proc. SPIE 8671, Medical Imaging 2013: Image-Guided Procedures, Robotic Interventions, and Modeling, 86710H (8 March 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2008349

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8671:
Medical Imaging 2013: Image-Guided Procedures, Robotic Interventions, and Modeling
David R. Holmes III; Ziv R. Yaniv, Editor(s)