Abstract
Computed tomography (CT) fluoroscopy-guided interventions such as ablation and biopsy are performed by inserting a specific needle into the lesion under CT fluoroscopy-guidance While those have various advantages including less invasive procedure, short procedure time, and low cost, a major concern to physicians is intraprocedural radiation exposure. In order to address this concern, we hypothesized that a remotely controllable robot could free physicians from radiation exposure. Since 2012, therefore, we have developed such a robot (Zerobot®), the tasks of which are to hold, target, and insert a needle under CT-guidance by a physician’s remotely manipulating a controller. The robot is floor-mounted and specially designed for a sliding-gantry CT scanner for CT-guided interventions. Phantom experiments showed that robotic needle insertion was equivalent in accuracy without exposing the physician to radiation, in comparison to manual insertion. Animal experiments showed that it was feasible, safe, and accurate in an in vivo procedure. In this article, we provide an overview of the robot, including future perspectives.
