DEVELOPMENT OF AN INSTRUMENTED SURGICAL SETUP FOR QUANTIFYING DISPLACEMENT AND FORCE IN SURGICAL DISSECTION

摘要

Knowledge of positional and force properties of surgical dissection in neurosurgery is essential in developing simulation platforms for neurosurgical training such that realistic motion and perception can be conveyed to the trainee during practice. Most proposed models in literature utilize computational techniques to formulate required parameters. However, these models are not realistic enough compared to data obtained from experiments on real brain. Therefore, developing a setup to measure the position, orientation, and interaction forces will help researchers formulate realistic parameters. This paper presents the development of such a setup for quantification of displacements and tool-tissue interaction forces during performance of microsurgical tasks. A bipolar forceps is equipped with a set of force sensing elements to measure the tool-tissue interaction force components. The position and orientation of the forceps tips are measured by attaching a tracker to the bipolar forceps. To show proof-of-concept, an experienced surgeon and one assistant surgeon performed 35 neurosurgical tasks (320 trials) on a cadaver brain (previously-frozen) using the instrumented setup. Positional and force data of the bipolar forceps were recorded during surgical dissection of different brain structures. This paper reports results collected from two microsurgical tasks over 40 trials: dissection of sylvian cistern arachnoid (SCA) and dissection of middle cerebral artery (MCA). Results showed that the mean values of interaction forces during dissection of MCA were smaller than dissecting SCA. The maximum forces observed were 1.94 N and 1.75 N for SCA and MCA, respectively. The application of quantifying such parameters using the developed setup will be in training neurosurgery residents using surgical simulators in which the knowledge of brain tissue parameters is required to formulate the tissue model.