Needle insertion is typically used for medical diagnosis and drug delivery and is therefore a critical aspect of health care. Insertion is considered to be one of the simplest and less invasive procedures. While in the end the rigid needle will normally function according to plan, it is fairly common that a needle missed the target and caused patient trauma. Not only may it simply hurt the patient if the needle is not correctly inserted, it may also cause false negatives, or it can deliver radiation therapy imprecisely, which may cause a lot of harm.
Robot Needle Steering has the potential to increase accuracy through a more agile control of the needle tip and makes it easier to insert a needle which is not accessible in a straight line. There are certain areas of the body that are not accessible by straight needle trajectories, and with the help of the Robot Needle this may lead to less invasive wounds, thus speeding up recovery times.
Recent studies in the field of robot guided needles have shown that there are large advantages to be gained, but before this system will be fully operational it will need to address difficulties that this project will run into.
University of Twente
