Advanced Robotic ultrasound Imaging for ultraprecise Spine surgery

Millions of people suffer from degenerative spine diseases (DSD) per year worldwide. DSD severely reduces the quality of the patient’s life and puts a high burden on the healthcare system. Pedicle screw placement (PSP) is an effective approach for spine fusion surgery. Manual PSP may lead to complications such as large blood loss and longer hospital stay. In contrast, robot-assisted PSP offers a disruptive approach that makes PSP safer and more precise. Current robotic systems still have several issues: they expose patients and surgeons to radiation, the reachable accuracy is limited as they do not update their path despite non-negligible patient motion and motion between intervertebral segments due to drilling. To address these issues, ARIS introduces a robot-assisted ultrasound (US) imaging system that allows online updating of navigation paths improving PSP accuracy. A lightweight KUKA robot will be integrated with an innovative hybrid ultrasound imaging mode. The developed system features autonomous force-controlled US imaging to reconstruct and track the spine during the intervention. Through co- manipulated operation, the surgeon can take over control over the US imaging if necessary. The developed prototype system will be verified in pre-clinical experiments. The envisioned outcomes will pave the way towards a radiation-free solution to treat spine disease that will reduce post-operative complications and could ultimately reduce the need for repeated surgery.