A needle insertion concept and robot system for breast tumor

The use of minimally invasive procedures for breast tumor diagnosis and treatment, such as needle biopsy and radio frequency ablation (RFA), is steadily increasing. Accurate needle insertion requires solving the problems of tissue deformation and target displacement. Breast needle insertion guided by imaging techniques such as ultrasound is widely used to evaluate suspicious masses within the breast. The current procedure allows the physician to determine the location and extent of a tumor in the patient breast before inserting the needle. However, there are several problems with this procedure: the complex interaction dynamics between the needle force and the breast tissue will likely displace the tumor from its original position necessitating multiple insertions, causing surgeons' fatigue, patients' discomfort, and compromising the integrity of the tissue specimen. In this work, our system involves a preloading phase and a needle insertion phase. What's more, we present a new concept for realtime manipulation of a tumor using a robotic controller that monitors the image of the tumor to generate appropriate external force to position the tumor at a desired location.