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A touchy-feely robot has been designed by scientists that can detect tougher tumour tissue with 40% more accuracy and in half the time than a human.
The robotic option in minimally invasive surgery (MIS) was developed by researchers from the University of Western Ontario and Canadian Surgical Technologies and Advanced Robotics (CSTAR) in Ontario.
A new MIS techniques has been already developed by Canadian surgeons that has drastically cut down the size of the incision to just a tiny one cm.
Malignant tissue is usually stiffer than the surrounding tissue. To identify the lesions before operation, oncologists use scanning techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) scanning.
It is difficult to rely on the position identified by scan as the tissues may shift during surgery.
So instead surgeons use gentle pressure (palpation) to confirm where the tumour is, or to locate further tumours not detected through scanning.
But in MIS this can be very tricky due to access difficulties - as the surgeon must attempt to feel for harder tissue using long, slim instruments via a very small incision.
Enter the robot-controlled palpating device: With cows' livers standing in for human tissue and one cm and half cm blobs of glue wrapped in wire representing tumours, the researchers compared palpation by surgeons, non-surgeons and the robot in the blinded trials.
The tumours detected with the robot had a greater accuracy - between 59 and 90 percent depending on the robot control method used for palpation.
The robot works by applying consistent force in each step, and moves over the tissue systematically. This produces a complete map, equivalent to one large pad applying ideal levels of force to the whole sample, similar to tactile sensors that have been developed to detect breast tumours.
These findings were published in the International Journal of Robotics Research.
