Design and Characterization of a Multiple Needle Insertion MRI-guided Robot for Irreversible Electroporation (IRE) Treatment

Irreversible electroporation (IRE) is a promising tumor treatment that uses an electric field to kill tumor cells. During treatment, 2–6 needles are inserted around the tumor, preferably placed in parallel and located at the same depth. This allows the electric field to be effectively distributed across the cell to destroy tumors. In this paper, we present a body-mounted, four degrees of freedom robot (140 mm × 147 mm × 113 mm), that assists multiple needle placement under Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) guidance. The robot and the actuator can be classified as an MR safe system, where the material composition consists of non-metallic, non-magnetic, and non-conductive material to allow safe operation inside the MRI scanner. The accuracy of the robot was evaluated, and the maximum translation error was 0.72 ± 0.26 mm on the horizontal axis and 1.60 ± 0.75 mm on the vertical axis. The compatibility of the robot with MRI was evaluated and no artifacts or changes to the signal-to-noise ratio were observed in the MRI images. The proposed robot was able to cover the target tumor area and supports the placement of multiple needles for IRE treatment.