Supervised autonomous robotic soft tissue surgery
Science Translational Medicine • 4 May 2016 • Vol 8, Issue 337 • p. 337ra64 • DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aad9398
Hands-free
The operating room may someday be run by robots, with surgeons overseeing their moves. Shademan et al. designed a “Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot,” or STAR, which consists of tools for suturing as well as fluorescent and 3D imaging, force sensing, and submillimeter positioning. With all of these components, the authors were able to use STAR for soft tissue surgery—a difficult task for a robot given tissue deformity and mobility. Surgeons tested STAR against manual surgery, laparoscopy, and robot-assisted surgery for porcine intestinal anastomosis, and found that the supervised autonomous surgery offered by the STAR system was superior.
Abstract
The current paradigm of robot-assisted surgeries (RASs) depends entirely on an individual surgeon’s manual capability. Autonomous robotic surgery—removing the surgeon’s hands—promises enhanced efficacy, safety, and improved access to optimized surgical techniques. Surgeries involving soft tissue have not been performed autonomously because of technological limitations, including lack of vision systems that can distinguish and track the target tissues in dynamic surgical environments and lack of intelligent algorithms that can execute complex surgical tasks. We demonstrate in vivo supervised autonomous soft tissue surgery in an open surgical setting, enabled by a plenoptic three-dimensional and near-infrared fluorescent (NIRF) imaging system and an autonomous suturing algorithm. Inspired by the best human surgical practices, a computer program generates a plan to complete complex surgical tasks on deformable soft tissue, such as suturing and intestinal anastomosis. We compared metrics of anastomosis—including the consistency of suturing informed by the average suture spacing, the pressure at which the anastomosis leaked, the number of mistakes that required removing the needle from the tissue, completion time, and lumen reduction in intestinal anastomoses—between our supervised autonomous system, manual laparoscopic surgery, and clinically used RAS approaches. Despite dynamic scene changes and tissue movement during surgery, we demonstrate that the outcome of supervised autonomous procedures is superior to surgery performed by expert surgeons and RAS techniques in ex vivo porcine tissues and in living pigs. These results demonstrate the potential for autonomous robots to improve the efficacy, consistency, functional outcome, and accessibility of surgical techniques.
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Supplementary Material
Summary
Materials and Methods
Fig. S1. Young’s modulus calculations for pig bowel and human bowel, with geometry and applied forces kept constant.
Fig. S2. Deformation patterns for markers illustrate the uncertain nature of motion propagation in soft tissue.
Fig. S3. Robotic construction of end-to-end anastomosis.
Table S1. Quantitative geometric quality of ex vivo linear suturing.
Table S2. Quantitative geometric quality of ex vivo end-to-end anastomosis.
Movie S1. Supervised autonomous end-to-end intestinal anastomosis.
Resources
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Science Translational Medicine
Volume 8 | Issue 337
May 2016
May 2016
Copyright
Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Submission history
Received: 24 November 2015
Accepted: 25 March 2016
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge C. Cochenour for technical assistance and R. McCarter for help in statistical analysis. Funding: This work was supported by the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation and Joseph E. Robert Jr. Endowment Awards. Author contributions: A.S., A.K., and P.C.W.K. created the study design. A.S., R.S.D., and S.L. developed the software. A.S., R.S.D., A.K., and J.D.O. carried out deformability experiments and analyzed the data. P.C.W.K. performed the in vivo OPEN procedure. A.S., R.S.D., J.D.O., A.K., S.L., and P.C.W.K. performed the STAR in vivo procedures. A.K. and J.D.O. provided animal care oversight. J.D.O. performed the statistical analysis. P.C.W.K. and J.D.O. performed histology analysis. A.S., R.S.D., J.D.O., S.L., A.K., and P.C.W.K. reviewed some or all of the primary data. A.S., P.C.W.K., A.K., R.S.D., and J.D.O. wrote the manuscript. All authors reviewed the manuscript. Competing interests: P.C.W.K., A.K., A.S., S.L., J.D.O., and R.S.D. are on the following related patents: 61/705,875; 13/863954; US-2014-0005684-A1; 14/038,192; 14/172,502; 61/909,604; 62088545; and 14625425. P.C.W.K. is a founder of Omniboros Inc., which develops smart automated and soft robots. Data and materials availability: There are no material transfer agreements or restrictive patents.
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