Data-driven adaptive needle insertion assist for transperineal prostate interventions

Clinical outcomes of transperineal prostate interventions, such as biopsy, thermal ablations, and brachytherapy, depend on accurate needle placement for effectiveness. However, the accurate placement of a long needle, typically 150-200 mm in length, is challenging due to needle deviation induced by needle-tissue interaction. While several approaches for needle trajectory correction have been studied, many of them do not translate well to practical applications due to the use of specialized needles not yet approved for clinical use, or to relying on needle-tissue models that need to be tailored to individual patients. In this paper, we present a robot-assisted collaborative needle insertion method that only requires an actuated passive needle guide and a conventional needle. The method is designed to assist a physician inserting a needle manually through a needle guide. If the needle is deviated from the intended path, actuators shifts the needle radially in order to steer the needle trajectory and compensate for needle deviation adaptively. The needle guide is controlled by a new data-driven algorithm which does not require information about needle or tissue properties. The method was evaluated in experiments with both and phantoms. The experiments in tissue reported a mean final placement error of 0.36 mm with a reduction of 96.25% of placement error when compared to insertions without the use of assistive correction. Presented results show that the proposed closed-loop formulation can be successfully used to correct needle deflection during collaborative manual insertion with potential to be easily translated into clinical application.