Robot-Assisted Surgery (RAS) is the next development in minimally invasive surgery and has seen rapid development in treatment of a wide variety of conditions. It offers improved clinical accuracy by giving surgeons better control of instruments and providing features such as 3D visualisation. Such developments are particularly useful in confined spaces such as the pelvis and rectum. So far, RAS has found limited application in oncological surgery, mostly because current RAS systems rely almost entirely on visual feedback, and do not provide support for clinical decision making. This work aims to provide a novel function in RAS to enhance intra-operative clinical decision making. This technology would accelerate development of RAS in many types of visceral and solid-organ surgery where visual feedback is limited or inadequate to determine surgical margins reliably.

Team

Principal Investigator: Yuhang Chen (HWU)

Co-Investigators: Duncan Hand, Bill MacPherson, Bob Reuben (HWU), Hugh Paterson, Daniel Good (NHS Lothian, University of Edinburgh)

Industrial Partners: CMR Surgical and Intellipalp Dx

Funding

Funded by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

Press

Press release, highlighted on radio, newspaper and scientific magazines.