Microsurgery-assisting Robotics (NeuRobot) : Current Status and Future Perspective(<SPECIAL ISSUE>Operation Suite in 21st Century)

Abstract

Surgical robotics has been widely used in the field of abdominal and urological surgeries to achieve less invasiveness. In neurosurgery, however, there are no such surgical robotics systems available clinically. We have been developing a surgical robotics system for treating deep-seated lesions in collaboration with Hitachi Co. Ltd., as well as the Department of Neurosurgery, Tokyo Women's Medical University, the Department of Engineering, University of Tokyo, etc. The system, named NeuRobot, consists of our main parts, i. e., a micromanipulator (slave manipulator), a manipulator-supporting device, an operation-input device (master manipulator), and a display monitor. Three 1-mm forceps and an endoscope, which can be remotely controlled with three degrees of freedom (rotation, neck swinging, and forward/backward motion), were installed in the slave manipulator. After conducting animal experiments and receiving permission from the Ethical Committee, this system has been applied for clinical cases including convexity meningioma, obstructive hydrocephalus, etc. Further modification has been carried out installing a 6-axis robotic arm to hold the slave manipulator, this is just for the experimental set-up, though. Although there are several hurdles to overcome such as approval from the government and usability of the system, surgical robotics must have a promising future to achieve less invasive neurosurgery.