Development of MR compatible surgical manipulator toward a unified support system for diagnosis and treatment of heart disease

Abstract

We propose a new concept of a unified system for supporting both surgical treatment and intrasurgical diagnosis of heart diseases, especially ischemic heart disease like myocardial infarction, under a magnetic-resonanceimaging (MRI) environment. In developing the system, we first designed and built a prototype of maneuverable manipulator as a subsystem. We then evaluated MR compatibility of the manipulator by moving its arm tip close to a phantom in the field of view of an open-configuration MR imager. No noticeable deformation, but some signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) deterioration, was observed in the MR images taken during evaluation. It is planned to combine the manipulator with other subsystems and function modules in order to construct an easy-to-use unified support system. This system will then be applied to treat a variety of diseases of organs and tissues in the human body.