C2020-60

About

A respiratory compensated robot for liver cancer treatment provides an effective and efficient platform for the deployment of radiofrequency ablation needles. The patient mounted robot consists of a 4-DoF dual-stage cartesian platform used to control the pose of a 1-DoF active needle insertion module. The robot is biologically inspired as its grasp-insert-release technique of needle deployment mimics current practices used by clinicians, however with much greater accuracy. In comparison to previously developed robots for needle interventions, our robot can implement an active motion compensation that minimizes any errors caused by the respiratory-induced motion of the liver by using the "grasp-insert-release" needle platform that is gated by the patient respiratory motion. The position of the compact and lightweight robot on the patient can easily be adjusted to their comfort levels as compared to other robots in the past that are either large in size or don't interface with the patient respiratory motion at all, leading to potential target errors. Primary liver cancer, also known as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), is the third most common cause of cancer-related death in the world with over 700,000 deaths reported annually. In the United States, an estimated 42,000 adults are diagnosed with liver cancer each year, and the number of cases is expected to continuously rise due to the increasing number of chronic liver diseases caused by alcohol, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C infection. The five-year survival rate for patients is as low as 4%. As a result, there is a considerable economic loss of upwards of $1 billion per year in the United States.