An Ultrasound Imaging-Guided Robotic HIFU Ablation Experimental System and Accuracy Evaluations

Abstract

In recent years, noninvasive thermal treatment by using high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has high potential in tumor treatment. The goal of this research is to develop an ultrasound imaging-guided robotic HIFU ablation system for tumor treatment. The system integrates the technologies of ultrasound image-assisted guidance, robotic positioning control, and HIFU treatment planning. With the assistance of ultrasound image guidance technology, the tumor size and location can be determined from ultrasound images as well as the robotic arm can be controlled to position the HIFU transducer to focus on the target tumor. After the development of the system, several experiments were conducted to measure the positioning accuracy of this system. The results show that the average positioning error is 1.01 mm with a standard deviation 0.34, and HIFU ablation accuracy is 1.32 mm with a standard deviation 0.58, which means this system is confirmed with its possibility and accuracy.

An Ultrasound-Guided Robotic HIFU Ablation System with Respiration Induced Displacement and Time Delay Compensation

“…The movement of the ultrasound probe is controlled by the motor-driven linear slide and detected by the optical tracker through the DRF, which is a reference coordinate frame tracked by the optical tracker. Through coordination transformation, the position of the tumor phantom relative to the ultrasound image frame can be transferred to and represented by the robot frame [26]. The robotic arm is thus able to bring the focal point of the HIFU transducer to aim at the tumor phantom.…”

“…The use of a robotic arm can improve the positioning accuracy and stability of the HIFU focal point. This research employed an experimental ultrasound imaging-guided robotic HIFU ablation system created for the conduction of a previous experiment [26] to further develop a synchronous method for tracking the displacement of a tumor during respiration and evaluated the accuracy of the method. Figure 1 illustrates the structure of the ultrasound imagingguided robotic HIFU ablation system.…”

“…Figure 1 illustrates the structure of the ultrasound imagingguided robotic HIFU ablation system. This system was based on a previously-designed experimental ultrasound imagingguided robotic HIFU ablation system [26] and combined with a respiratory simulation device in order to simulate the displacement of a tumor during the respiratory cycle. This system integrated an optical tracker (Northern Digital Inc., Polaris Spectra), dynamic reference frames (DRF, a tool with three IR reflective marker spheres), an ultrasound imaging system (Hitachi-Aloka Medical, ProSound Alpha 6), a HIFU ablation system (Sonic, H-106 probe with Instek, GFG-8255 signal generator and AR, 150A100B power amplifier), a robotic arm (YAMAHA, YK400XG), an experimental water tank, a notebook (Dell, M4500), and the novel respiratory simulation device.…”

Optical coherence tomography for precision brain imaging, neurosurgical guidance and minimally invasive theranostics

“…Integration of in vivo/ in situ imaging and therapy will provide some more possibilities for intraoperative diagnosis and therapeutic (17,(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)96). With respect to tumor resection in soft biological tissue, OCT-guided laser ablation is a novel theranostics method, especially in brain tumor resection.…”

“…A fluorescence-guided laser ablation system to resect residual cancer for soft tissue sarcoma has been investigated in a mouse model by Lazarides et al (26). Integration of diagnostics and therapeutics has been used in the treatment of tumorous tissue, such as the integration of ultrasound and robotic technology (27)(28)(29). OCT has been widely used in imaging to improve diagnostic accuracy and precision, and it can guide therapies via providing intraoperative in situ abundant information of tumorous tissue (30)(31)(32).…”