Tacticity Research in Robotic Surgery
Rahuldev Bhalla M.D.
Director of Robotic and Minimally Invasive Surgery
Department of Urology
StonyBrook Medical Center
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the United States. In 2006, an estimated 234,460 men in US were diagnosed with prostate cancer. Currently, radical prostatectomy is the only treatment that has been shown to decrease disease-specific mortality from prostate cancer. However, concerns over the morbidity of open radical prostatectomy, including pain, blood loss and length of hospital stay, have led the impetus to develop minimally invasive approaches to radical prostatectomy. Laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP) was first reported in 1992. However, this procedure has not gained widespread popularity. Since 2000, robotic assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) has been adopted as the technique of choice for performing radical prostatectomy. The inherent advantages of RARP include 3-dimensional visualization and endowrist instrumentation, both of which permit a shorter learning curve in addition to a more precise surgery. However, direct haptic (force or tactile) feedback is not available in current commercial robotic surgical systems. The addition of haptic feedback has been proposed as a way to further enhance the performance of these systems. Direct tactile or force feedback is necessary to decrease the number of broken sutures and the number of loose knots as well as limit tissue damage, and will result in a more consistent application of forces. Haptic feedback also increases operator performance and surgeon comfort during telerobotic manipulation. Feedback of grasping pressure is critical in many microsurgical tasks. However, due to limitations in current sensing and control technologies, implementing direct haptic feedback to the surgeon’s hands remains impractical for clinical application. In this project, we intend to investigate a set of effective sensing techniques to provide real-time force feedback for current commercial robotic surgical systems. Here at StonyBrook Medical Center, we are developing a novel haptic system. This is composed of two end effectors on each instrument as well as a single tool effector which will give visual tactile feedback to the user in the form of a color strain gauge. The research is on-going and promising.
Director of Robotic and Minimally Invasive Surgery
Department of Urology
StonyBrook Medical Center
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the United States. In 2006, an estimated 234,460 men in US were diagnosed with prostate cancer. Currently, radical prostatectomy is the only treatment that has been shown to decrease disease-specific mortality from prostate cancer. However, concerns over the morbidity of open radical prostatectomy, including pain, blood loss and length of hospital stay, have led the impetus to develop minimally invasive approaches to radical prostatectomy. Laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP) was first reported in 1992. However, this procedure has not gained widespread popularity. Since 2000, robotic assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) has been adopted as the technique of choice for performing radical prostatectomy. The inherent advantages of RARP include 3-dimensional visualization and endowrist instrumentation, both of which permit a shorter learning curve in addition to a more precise surgery. However, direct haptic (force or tactile) feedback is not available in current commercial robotic surgical systems. The addition of haptic feedback has been proposed as a way to further enhance the performance of these systems. Direct tactile or force feedback is necessary to decrease the number of broken sutures and the number of loose knots as well as limit tissue damage, and will result in a more consistent application of forces. Haptic feedback also increases operator performance and surgeon comfort during telerobotic manipulation. Feedback of grasping pressure is critical in many microsurgical tasks. However, due to limitations in current sensing and control technologies, implementing direct haptic feedback to the surgeon’s hands remains impractical for clinical application. In this project, we intend to investigate a set of effective sensing techniques to provide real-time force feedback for current commercial robotic surgical systems. Here at StonyBrook Medical Center, we are developing a novel haptic system. This is composed of two end effectors on each instrument as well as a single tool effector which will give visual tactile feedback to the user in the form of a color strain gauge. The research is on-going and promising.
posted by John J. Otrompke | 8:41 AM
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