Worcester, Mass. (PRWEB) September 18, 2014
A novel robotic system that can operate inside the bore of an MRI scanner is presently being tested as part of a biomedical analysis partnership system at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston with the aim of figuring out if the robot, in conjunction with true-time MRI photos, can make prostate cancer biopsies more rapidly, a lot more accurate, much less costly, and less discomforting for the patient. The novel method also has the prospective to deliver prostate cancer therapies with greater precision.

Created by a team of robotics engineers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in collaboration with colleagues at Johns Hopkins University, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Acoustic MedSystems Inc., the robotic technique is being employed in the BWH Advanced Multimodality Image-Guided Operating suite (AMIGO).

“Prostate cancer is the final kind of cancer nonetheless diagnosed with blind needle biopsies, so we are operating to alter that with image-guided technology,” stated Clare M. Tempany, MD, professor of radiology at Harvard Medical College, chair of research radiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and principal investigator for the analysis plan. “The ultimate aim of our group is to create enabling technologies that extend the capabilities of physicians to treat their individuals.”

The “first-in-human” testing of the robotic technique is also the culmination of much more than six years of investigation and improvement by Gregory Fischer, associate professor of mechanical engineering and robotics engineering at WPI and director of WPI’s Automation and Interventional Medicine (AIM) Robotics Analysis Laboratory. Fischer has pioneered, along with Iulian Iordachita and colleagues from the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics (LCSR) at the Johns Hopkins University, the development of compact, higher-precision surgical robots that are expressly created to perform in the atmosphere inside the bore of an MRI scanner, as properly as the electronic manage systems and computer software required to operate the robots with the security, reliability, and ease of use essential of technologies made for the operating space.

“The robot offers the physician a fantastic deal more choice about where to location the biopsy needle,” Fischer stated. “This technology ought to permit greater accuracy, and the odds of hitting the target on the initial attempt ought to be greater. The anticipated result is fewer needle placements with greater sensitivity, a more quickly process, significantly less want for repeated biopsies, reduced all round cost, and lowered discomfort for the patient.”

Presently in the United States, most prostate biopsies are performed in conjunction with ultrasound imaging. Whilst an ultrasound scan can localize the prostate, the imaging modality can not determine exactly where the possible cancer could be. As a result, the biopsies are performed randomly with repeated needle insertions looking for to take away samples from the cancerous tissue. These procedures endure from low sensitivity and could create misleading final results. In truth, about 35 percent of significant tumors may be missed in the course of initial biopsies that are guided solely by ultrasound. Simply because of the higher error rate, patients often require to return for repeated biopsies as their symptoms persist and their tumors continue to grow.

MRI, on the other hand, can create detailed anatomical and tissue-characterization images of the prostate and detect potentially cancerous lesions. For that reason, there is substantial interest nationally in establishing techniques for making use of actual-time imagery from MRI alone or in conjunction with ultrasound to guide the insertion of needles for prostate biopsies. Sooner or later, if the robotic technologies proves powerful, it could effortlessly be adapted to provide therapies straight to the tumors within the prostate, Dr. Tempany noted.

In biopsies now conducted as portion of a Brigham and Women’s program without having the new robot, physicians use a plastic grid to aid position the biopsy needle. They very first use multi-modality MRI scans to generate a strategy showing exactly where the needle ought to be inserted, then with the patient in the MRI scanner, the doctor directs the needle by means of most appropriate guide holes in the grid. Added scans are made periodically to verify the path of the needle and make adjustments, if required.

Rather than restrict the needle positioning to the selections offered by the grid, WPI/JHU ‘s MRI-compatible robot manipulates a needle-guide inside the bore of the scanner to aid the physician spot the needle in the most optimal position as indicated by the actual-time pictures generated by the MRI.

To develop robots that can function inside an MRI scanner, Fischer and his team have had to overcome numerous substantial technical challenges. Most important, considering that the scanner includes a effective magnet, the robot, including all of its sensors and actuators, should be produced from non-ferrous supplies. The robot utilized in the prostate cancer trial is constructed mostly of plastic parts and uses ceramic piezoelectric motors. In addition, a low-noise WPI-developed custom control method and nicely-shielded wiring support to avoid the emission of electrical signals that could mar the MRI photos. The robot need to also be modest sufficient to match in the cramped confines of the MRI bore and still leave room for the patient and the clinician’s hands. “On leading of all this, we had to create the communications protocols and software interfaces for controlling the robot, and interface those with greater-level imaging and preparing systems,” Fischer stated. “That added up to a huge systems integration project.”

Making a system that can be used in clinical practice added another layer of complexity, Fischer mentioned. To commence with, the robot should be effortless for a non-technical surgical group to sterilize, set up, and location in the scanner. “It requirements to be straightforward to use and foolproof,” he stated. “It needed numerous iterations of the hardware and software to get to that point.”

In addition, the program contains very enforced workflows to guarantee that procedures are carried out in the right order and the identical way every time the technique is utilized. The method also has robust error detection to alert the staff ought to a cable turn into unplugged or other unexpected problems take place. “We wanted to be certain that an error will trigger the robot to safely stop,” Fischer stated, “but we also wanted to the technique to be in a position to recover and continue, if feasible, with out possessing to start off the process all over again. We spent a wonderful deal of time on risk mitigation, figuring out all of the techniques the system could fail and what we would do in every and every single case.”

The test of the robot system is an important component of a larger clinical investigation plan at Brigham and Women’s Hospital funded by a Bioengineering Research Partnership award from the National Institutes of Overall health through the National Cancer Institute.* Beneath way because 2006, the system has received much more than $ 7 million in NIH help for improvement of an FDA-approved image-guided platform for use with MRI or ultrasound, which can help in baseline imaging, diagnostic biopsy, and remedy of prostate cancer.

In Fischer’s AIM lab (aimlab.wpi.edu), work is also under way on a next-generation robotic system that, in addition to positioning a needle guide, will also robotically actuate the insertion and assist steer the needle to a target of interest. “We hope to be in a position to test that system with sufferers in a year or so,” Fischer says. “We are also hunting forward to collaborating with Brigham and Women’s Hospital and other partners to test the use of our program not just in prostate cancer diagnosis, but to provide therapy, whether or not brachytherapy or ablation therapy.”

WPI’s modular MRI-compatible robotic system can be readily adapted for other surgical applications. For instance, Fischer is the principal investigator on a $ three million R01 award from the National Cancer Institute, through which he and a team that includes colleagues at Albany Healthcare College, the University of Massachusetts Healthcare School, and Acoustic MedSystems are establishing a robotic technique that, guided by true-time MRI imagery, will insert a probe although a dime-sized opening in the cranium to destroy brain tumors employing interstitial higher-intensity focused ultrasound.

*”Enabling Technologies for MIR-Guided Prostate Interventions,” NIH project No. R01CA111288-09

About Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Founded in 1865 in Worcester, Mass., WPI is one particular of the nation’s first engineering and technologies universities. Its 14 academic departments provide much more than 50 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science, engineering, technologies, business, the social sciences, and the humanities and arts, leading to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees. WPI’s talented faculty function with students on interdisciplinary analysis that seeks solutions to crucial and socially relevant difficulties in fields as diverse as the life sciences and bioengineering, power, information safety, components processing, and robotics. Students also have the chance to make a difference to communities and organizations around the globe by means of the university’s innovative Global Perspective System. There are far more than 40 WPI project centers the Americas, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Europe.

About Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) is a 793-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Health-related School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare. BWH has much more than three.5 million annual patient visits, is the largest birthing center in Massachusetts, and employs practically 15,000 men and women. The Brigham’s medical preeminence dates back to 1832, and today that wealthy history in clinical care is coupled with its national leadership in patient care, good quality improvement and patient safety initiatives, and its dedication to investigation, innovation, neighborhood engagement and educating and education the subsequent generation of well being care specialists. Through investigation and discovery conducted at its Brigham Research Institute (BRI), BWH is an international leader in simple, clinical and translational investigation on human illnesses, much more than 1,000 doctor-investigators and renowned biomedical scientists and faculty supported by almost $ 650 million in funding. For the last 25 years, BWH ranked second in study funding from the National Institutes of Overall health (NIH) amongst independent hospitals. BWH continually pushes the boundaries of medicine, like developing on its legacy in transplantation by performing a partial face transplant in 2009 and the nation’s very first complete face transplant in 2011. BWH is also property to major landmark epidemiologic population studies, including the Nurses’ and Physicians’ Well being Research and the Women’s Overall health Initiative.

Make contact with:
Michael Cohen
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Worcester, Massachusetts
508-868-4778, mcohen(at)wpi(dot)edu
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