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Robotics Makes Needle Injection a Push-Button Affair

Robotics Makes Needle Injection a Push-Button Affair

April 13, 2015

Medical Research, Robotics & High-Tech

The Economist — Central venous catheters, or central lines, are commonly used with critically ill patients to administer drugs, fluids, food or blood products close to the heart. However, placing needles inside veins deep in the body is notoriously difficult.

Some 15 to 30 percent of attempts suffer complications, mainly punctured arteries that can lead to infection (around 250,000 cases in America annually), but also bleeding, collapsed lungs and even cardiac arrest. Failure rates in children can be higher still. A study in 2013 by Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, found that over half the attempts to place a central venous catheter in children failed on the first go.

A prototype of the automated needle device (Photo: Melissa Gerr)

A prototype of the automated needle injection device (Photo: Melissa Gerr)

Now a collaboration between Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev hopes to automate the entire process.

A team led by Prof. Hugo Guterman, of BGU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the founding director of the University’s Laboratory for Autonomous Robotics, has built a prototype device that uses ultrasound, machine vision and a robotic needle-dispenser to make placing a central venous catheter a push-button affair.

The operator lays the wireless device on a patient’s arm, leg or neck and views an ultrasound image on a nearby computer screen. The system then identifies the center and edges of each blood vessel, as deep as 15cm (6 inches) inside the body and as narrow as 0.5mm in width, making it particularly useful for treating children.

Note that the operator does not have to be a doctor. Prof. Guterman envisions his device being used by most clinical staff, including paramedics.

Using a joystick, the operator aligns a target icon over a vein. The system uses a tracking algorithm to keep the blood vessel aligned. When ready, the operator simply presses a button to insert the needle.

Read more on The Economist website >>