Surgery to relieve the damaging pressure caused by
hemorrhaging in the brain is a perfect job for a robot.
That is the basic premise of a new image-guided surgical
system under development at Vanderbilt University. It employs steerable needles
about the size of those used for biopsies to penetrate the brain with minimal
damage and suction away the blood clot that has formed.
The system is described in an article accepted for
publication in the journal IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. It is
the product of an ongoing collaboration between a team of engineers and
physicians headed by Assistant Professor Robert J. Webster III and Assistant
Professor of Neurological Surgery Kyle Weaver.