A novel microwave tool for robotic liver resection in minimally invasive surgery

Abstract

Introduction

During the last two decades, many surgical procedures have evolved from open surgery to minimally invasive surgery (MIS). This limited invasiveness has motivated the development of robotic assistance platforms to obtain better surgical outcomes. Nowadays, the da Vinci robot is a commercial tele-robotic platform widely used for different surgical applications.

Material and methods

In this work, the da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK), namely the research version of the da Vinci, is used to manipulate a novel microwave device in a teleoperation scenario. The dVRK provides an open source platform, so that the novel microwave tool, dedicated to prevention bleeding during hepatic resection surgery, is mechanically integrated on the slave side, while the software interface is adapted in order to correctly control tool pose. Tool integration is validated through in-vitro and ex-vivo tests performed by expert surgeons, meanwhile the coagulative efficacy of the developed tool in a perfused liver model was proved in in-vivo tests.

Results and conclusions

An innovative microwave tool for liver robotic resection has been realized and integrated into a surgical robot. The tool can be easily operated through the dVRK without limiting the intuitive and friendly use, and thus easily reaching the hemostasis of vessels.

Keywords:

• Microwave device
• da Vinci Research Kit
• thermal ablation
• robotic surgery
• minimally invasive surgery

Declaration of Interest

Guido Biffi Gentili is a founding partner of the M-Wave Company and the other authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This research has received funding from Regione Toscana in the framework of the IMEROS project within the ‘Programma Attuativo Regionale cofinanziato dal FAS – PAR FAS 2007–2013’ and it was supported by the project MOTU (robotic prosthesis with sMart sOcket and bidirectional inTerface for lower limb ampUtees), funded by INAIL. The authors would like to thank the dVRK Research Community and Intuitive Surgical Inc. for the dVRK donation.