Robot To Perform Brain Surgery Through Cheek
Using New Technique
A
team of engineers led by Eric Barth of Vanderbilt University have developed a new technique in which a robot performs
brain surgery by entering through the cheek
instead of the traditional method of cutting
through the skull when performing a lobectomy . This could minimize and reduce recovery time.
This
new technique Leaves the skull intact
reducing healing time and other potential complications.
"I've done a lot of work in my career on the control of pneumatic systems," Barth said in a press release. "We knew we had this ability to have a robot in the MRI scanner, doing something in a way that other robots could not. Then we thought, 'What can we do that would have the highest impact?’"
"The systems we have now that let us introduce probes into the brain—they deal with straight lines and are only manually guided," Neimat explained. "To have a system with a curved needle and unlimited access would make surgeries minimally invasive. We could do a dramatic surgery with nothing more than a needle stick to the cheek.”
Test procedures using a prototype device showed that the surgery was successful and accurate to 1.18 millimeters.
