Experimental new automatic tools for robotic stereotactic neurosurgery: towards "no hands" procedure of leads implantation into a brain targetShow others and affiliations
2016 (English)In: Journal of neural transmission, ISSN 0300-9564, E-ISSN 1435-1463, Vol. 123, no 7, p. 737-750Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Resource type
Text
Abstract [en]
The use of robotics in neurosurgery and, particularly, in stereotactic neurosurgery, is becoming more and more adopted because of the great advantages that it offers. Robotic manipulators easily allow to achieve great precision, reliability, and rapidity in the positioning of surgical instruments or devices in the brain. The aim of this work was to experimentally verify a fully automatic "no hands" surgical procedure. The integration of neuroimaging to data for planning the surgery, followed by application of new specific surgical tools, permitted the realization of a fully automated robotic implantation of leads in brain targets. An anthropomorphic commercial manipulator was utilized. In a preliminary phase, a software to plan surgery was developed, and the surgical tools were tested first during a simulation and then on a skull mock-up. In such a way, several tools were developed and tested, and the basis for an innovative surgical procedure arose. The final experimentation was carried out on anesthetized "large white" pigs. The determination of stereotactic parameters for the correct planning to reach the intended target was performed with the same technique currently employed in human stereotactic neurosurgery, and the robotic system revealed to be reliable and precise in reaching the target. The results of this work strengthen the possibility that a neurosurgeon may be substituted by a machine, and may represent the beginning of a new approach in the current clinical practice. Moreover, this possibility may have a great impact not only on stereotactic functional procedures but also on the entire domain of neurosurgery.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2016. Vol. 123, no 7, p. 737-750
Keywords [en]
Brain stimulation, Neurosurgery, Medical robotics, Robot kinematics
National Category
Computer and Information Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-32418DOI: 10.1007/s00702-016-1575-9ISI: 000378992700007PubMedID: 27194228Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-84969801312OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-32418DiVA, id: diva2:950209
Conference
4th International Conference on New Ideas, Perspectives and Applications in Functional Neurosurgery - State of the Art of the Deep Brain Stimulation of the Pedunculopontine Tegmental Nucleus, DEC 18-20, 2014, Rome, ITALY
2016-07-282016-07-282018-01-10Bibliographically approved