Biomedical Engineering Seminar 
"Flexible Meso-scale Robotic Systems for Image-guided Neurosurgery"

Jaydev P. Desai, Ph.D.
University of Maryland

ABSTRACT
This talk will focus specifically on two areas within image-guided robot-assisted neurosurgery, namely: a) MINIR: Minimally Invasive Neurosurgical Intracranial Robot and b) Neurosurgical Intracerebral Hemorrhage Evacuation (NICHE) robot.
    Brain tumors are among the most feared complications of cancer occurring in 20–40% of adult cancer patients. Though there have been significant advances in treatment, the prognosis of these patients is poor. Whether there is a primary malignancy or a secondary malignancy, whenever the brain of the cancer patient is involved in treatment, there is a significant impact on their overall quality of life. While the most optimal treatment currently for most brain tumors involves primary surgical resection, many patients may not be able to undergo that treatment plan due to either their poor general health or an unfavorable location (either deep inside the brain or inaccessibility of the tumor) of the lesion. Hence, this is a significant healthcare problem. Similarly, spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) occurs in about 2 million people worldwide. The 30-day mortality rate is about 32-50% and functional independence after 6 months is achieved in only about 20-25% of the individuals who survive such hemorrhages. Removal of the blood clot and decreasing the recurrence of re-hemorrhage using robotic techniques could potentially help with effective management of ICH. In both cases, traditional approaches are limiting, since they do not provide visualization beyond the direct line-of-sight. This talk will focus on our progress on the development of image-guided robotic systems for these two NIH projects involving innovative design of the robots and the associated kinematics, MRI-compatible actuators, and evaluation of these systems under the appropriate imaging environment.