An Innovative Family of Modular Parallel Robots for Brachytherapy

Brachytherapy (BT) is an advanced form of radiation therapy enabling the concentration of high doses in specific target points, enabling the direct treatment of tumors without damaging the proximal healthy tissues. BT usage is limited by the insufficient accuracy of radioactive seeds placement in the body. For this purpose, the paper presents an innovative family of modular parallel robots designed specifically to overcome the limitations of current BT procedures. The robotic structures employ two distinct modules in conjunction, which result in a reduced number of moving parts and removal of unwanted motions.

[1]  Pierluigi Rea,et al.  The Design of a Novel Tilt Seat for Inversion Therapy , 2013 .

[2]  Ludovic Reveiz,et al.  Palliative endobronchial brachytherapy for non-small cell lung cancer. , 2012, The Cochrane database of systematic reviews.

[3]  N. Hata,et al.  Needle Insertion Simulation for Image-Guided Brachytherapy of Prostate Cancer , 2008, 2008 2nd International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedical Engineering.

[4]  Radu Badea,et al.  Contrast enhanced ultrasound guidance: a new tool to improve accuracy in percutaneous biopsies. , 2010, Medical ultrasonography.

[5]  Rainer Hofmann,et al.  Advantage of robotic needle placement on a prostate model in HDR brachytherapy , 2011, Strahlentherapie und Onkologie.

[6]  G.S. Fischer,et al.  Design of a Robot for Transperineal Prostate Needle Placement in MRI Scanner , 2006, 2006 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics.

[7]  Yongde Zhang,et al.  Robot-Assisted Prostate Brachytherapy , 2006, MICCAI.

[8]  Eric Levy,et al.  What is the real impact of bone pain on survival in patients with metastatic hormone‐refractory prostate cancer treated with docetaxel? , 2009, BJU international.

[9]  A. Tornes,et al.  A new brachytherapy seed design for improved ultrasound visualization , 2003, IEEE Symposium on Ultrasonics, 2003.

[10]  G. Viani,et al.  Brachytherapy for cervix cancer: low-dose rate or high-dose rate brachytherapy – a meta-analysis of clinical trials , 2009, Journal of experimental & clinical cancer research : CR.

[11]  Jun Liu,et al.  Kinematic analysis of a 5-DOF hybrid-driven MR compatible robot for minimally invasive prostatic interventions , 2012, Robotica.

[12]  Pierluigi Rea,et al.  Effects of the design parameters on the synthesis of Geneva mechanisms , 2013 .