Closed-loop actuated surgical system utilizing real-time In-Situ MRI guidance

Abstract

Direct magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guidance during surgical intervention would provide many benefits; most significantly, interventional MRI can be used for planning, monitoring of tissue deformation, realtime visualization of manipulation, and confirmation of procedure success. Direct MR guidance has not yet taken hold because it is often confounded by a number of issues including: MRI-compatibility of existing surgery equipment and patient access in the scanner bore. This paper presents a modular surgical system designed to facilitate the development of MRI-compatible intervention devices. Deep brain stimulation and prostate brachytherapy robots are the two examples that successfully deploying this surgical modules. Phantom and human imaging experiments validate the capability of delineating anatomical structures in 3T MRI during robot motion.