A realistic phantom for ultrasound-guided central venous cannulation

Abstract

Ultrasound-guided central venous cannulation (CVC) has become standard to care. Ultrasound imaging allows the CVC procedure to be completed much safer than a standard blind landmark approach. To enhance medical personnel's skill in performing challenging ultrasound-guided CVC, an adult size CVC phantom that simulated the human head to the chest, with a detachable CVC operational part, was proposed in this study to provide medical personnel with realistic needle insertion haptic feedback and ultrasound imaging. The detachable CVC operational part could be customized to simulate different patient conditions, such as adult patient (with normal standard size of vascular), the elderly (with collapsed vascular), children (with smaller diameter of vascular), vascular fibrosis patient (with hardening of vascular) and obese patient (with thick fat tissue). In the current stage of prototype development, a CVC operational part with simulated blood vessels and clavicle embedded inside the fat- and muscle-mimicking tissue was produced. Both the fat- and muscle-mimicking tissue pose mechanical and acoustic properties similar to real tissues. The target vein for CVC procedure could be recognized from the ultrasound imaging of the CVC operational part.