Robotically assisted ablative treatment guided by freehand 3D ultrasound

Robots can improve the accuracy of image-guided needle placement over traditional free-hand techniques. While many research groups have demonstrated this, widespread clinical adoption of needle placement robots has not immediately followed, because 1) Robots are generally expensive and 2) they are difficult to calibrate and register to the patient in a manner fast and user-friendly enough to be practical in the operating room. Our solution to these considerations is a novel, clinically applicable, low-cost system consisting of a robot (manipulating the needle through a surgeon specified trajectory), guided by tracked freehand 3 Dimensional Ultrasound (3DUS). We address cost by algorithmically enabling the robot to be unencoded, uncalibrated, and mechanically simple. We address ease of use by eliminating preoperative registration, and nearly eliminating calibration. The surgical tool is tracked and thereby registered imager intra-operatively. A structured 3DUS volume, created using a tr...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: CARS
• Authors: Emad Boctor, Robert J. Webster III, Michael A. Choti, Russell H. Taylor, Gabor Fichtinger
• Keywords: CARS 2004, Image-guided Needle Placement, Medical Imaging, Needle Placement, Robot