Concentric Tube Robot-Based Intracerebral Hemorrhage Evacuation in ex vivo Sheep Head: A Comparative Study

Intracerebral hemorrhage is a type of hemorrhagic stroke that is caused by the rupture of a cerebral blood vessel. The recent Early Minimally Invasive Removal of Intracerebral Hemorrhage trial has confirmed that minimally invasive surgery (MIS) can improve functional outcomes in patients. Despite its benefits, there are several limitations imposed by the state-of-the-art MIS approaches such as poor device dexterity and limited intraoperative feedback. In this paper, we present the most recent development of an MR-guided concentric tube robot (CTR) for intracerebral hemorrhage evacuation. The contributions of this paper include (i) a method of clot fabrication in an ex vivo ovine sample using an endotracheal catheter equipped with a balloon, (ii) accuracy evaluations of our CTR using the curved portion within the ex vivo sample, and (iii) a comparative study between the straight-only evacuation and an evacuation using the curved portion of the CTR. We find a 30.2% improvement in evacuation efficacy can be obtained with the CTR-based evacuation compared to the straight-only evacuation.