In-Human Robot-Assisted Retinal Vein Cannulation, A World First

Retinal Vein Occlusion (RVO) is a blinding disease caused by one or more occluded retinal veins. Current treatment methods only focus on symptom mitigation rather than targeting a solution for the root cause of the disorder. Retinal vein cannulation is an experimental eye surgical procedure which could potentially cure RVO. Its goal is to dissolve the occlusion by injecting an anticoagulant directly into the blocked vein. Given the scale and the fragility of retinal veins on one end and surgeons’ limited positioning precision on the other, performing this procedure manually is considered to be too risky. The authors have been developing robotic devices and instruments to assist surgeons in performing this therapy in a safe and successful manner. This work reports on the clinical translation of the technology, resulting in the world-first in-human robot-assisted retinal vein cannulation. Four RVO patients have been treated with the technology in the context of a phase I clinical trial. The results show that it is technically feasible to safely inject an anticoagulant into a $$100\,{\mu} {\rm m}$$100μm-thick retinal vein of an RVO patient for a period of 10 min with the aid of the presented robotic technology and instrumentation.