Tumor detection¶
With advances in radiological imaging enabling 3D representations and a systematic detection of tumour anomalies, cancer is being diagnosed at an increasingly early stage. Early diagnosis offers a prognostic advantage, since it allows limited therapy that respects the injured organ, with the objective of rapid functional recovery. In this way, it is possible to have a clear idea of the tumor's position in an organ. Unfortunately, tumors are often smaller than a centimeter in diameter, making them more difficult to localize. More importantly, they are more mobile during the treatment procedure due to variations in the position of the organ and movements associated with breathing and surrounding environment. These have a significant effect on the recovery success rate.
Key issues: tool positioning and tumor treatment precision¶
Currently, most tumors are treated by invasive surgery or less invasive percutaneous treatments (cryotherapy or thermotherapy). These treatments are limited by their imprecision and the need to use multiple instruments, resulting in a lack of coordination between them.
Whatever the accuracy of new technologies, the therapeutic approach is based on three the target to be treated, visualization system (X-ray or ultrasonic), the treatment probe.
The treatment probe is either brought in manually by the surgeon at the time of treatment, or more often, after a radiological identification that introduces a spatial error (position and motion).
Manual positioning of treatment tools in the case of surgical telemanipulators remains limited to a zone without taking into account the precise location of the tumor, with margins of error due to the multiplication of systems.
The technique of positioning processing tools by image transfer in an environment such as MRI is more precise, but also more constrained and costly.
Meeting the challenge of moving targets¶
Cobodoc™ surgical cobotics system
The Cobodoc surgical cobotics system was born of an idea to develop a smart collaborative robotic assistance system. Cobodoc's objective is to design a minimally invasive surgical solution for moving organic targets, such as a tumor growing within an organ, to allow accurate destruction without the need for radiological imaging like MRI
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