Robotic-guided intervention

Abstract

Endovascular intervention is rapidly evolving, allowing more complex pathologies to be managed in a minimally invasive fashion. Although clearly preferable than open surgery for patients with age- or disease-related comorbidities, patient-specific anatomical factors often present a technical challenge even for experienced interventionalists. The use of endovascular robotic technology is a comparatively new field of work considering existing applications in cardiac intervention including atrial fibrillation, mapping, and coronary stent implantation. Several commercially available devices have been designed specifically for use within the vascular tree and utilize a variety of engineering principles to facilitate control of the catheter tip. The Niobe Navigation System (Stereotaxis, USA) was designed for cardiac intervention and consists of two permanent magnets mounted on either side of the fluoroscopy table creating a spherical uniform magnetic field. The computer workstation allows the operator to select the desired field vectors by changing the orientation of the outer magnets relative to each other. The catheter tip has small magnetic implants, which are navigated by the magnetic field.