Assessing the accuracy of a multisection robotic bronchoscope prototype in localization and targeting of small pulmonary lesions.

Objectives: Robotic bronchoscopy (RB) has emerged as a novel technique to address issues with the biopsy of small peripheral lung lesions. The objective of this study was to quantitatively assess the accuracy of a novel multisection robotic bronchoscope compared with current standards of care.

Methods: This is a prospective, single-blind, comparative study where the accuracy of a multisection RB was compared against the accuracy of standard electromagnetic navigational bronchoscopy (EM-NB) during lesion localization and targeting.

Feasibility of multi-section continuum robotic ureteroscope in the kidney.

Our objective was to evaluate the feasibility of a multi-section continuum robotic ureteroscope to address the difficulties with access into certain renal calyces during flexible ureteroscopy. First, the robotic ureteroscope developed in previous research, which utilizes three actuated bendable sections controlled by wires, was modified for use in this project. Second, using phantom models created from five randomly selected computer tomography urograms, the flexible ureteroscope and robotic ureteroscope were evaluated, focusing on several factors: time taken to access each renal calyx, time taken to aim at three targets on each renal calyx, the force generated in the renal pelvic wall associated with ureteroscope manipulation, and the distance and standard deviation between the ureteroscope and the target.

Computer-based airway stenosis quantification from bronchoscopic images: preliminary results from a feasibility trial.

Purpose: Airway Stenosis (AS) is a condition of airway narrowing in the expiration phase. Bronchoscopy is a minimally invasive pulmonary procedure used to diagnose and/or treat AS. The AS quantification in a form of the Stenosis Index (SI), whether subjective or digital, is necessary for the physician to decide on the most appropriate form of treatment.

Predicting reachability to peripheral lesions in transbronchial biopsies using CT-derived geometrical attributes of the bronchial route.

Purpose: The bronchoscopist's ability to locate the lesion with the bronchoscope is critical for a transbronchial biopsy. However, much less study has been done on the transbronchial biopsy route. This study aims to determine whether the geometrical attributes of the bronchial route can predict the difficulty of reaching tumors in bronchoscopic intervention.

Visually Navigated Bronchoscopy using three cycle-Consistent generative adversarial network for depth estimation.

[Background] Electromagnetically Navigated Bronchoscopy (ENB) is currently the state-of-the art diagnostic and interventional bronchoscopy. CT-to-body divergence is a critical hurdle in ENB, causing navigation error and ultimately limiting the clinical efficacy of diagnosis and treatment. In this study, Visually Navigated Bronchoscopy (VNB) is proposed to address the aforementioned issue of CT-to-body divergence.

Technical Validation of Multi-Section Robotic Bronchoscope With First Person View Control for Transbronchial Biopsies of Peripheral Lung.

This study aims to validate the advantage of new engineering method to maneuver multi-section robotic bronchoscope with first person view control in transbronchial biopsy. Six physician operators were recruited and tasked to operate a manual and a robotic bronchoscope to the peripheral area placed in patient-derived lung phantoms. The metrics collected were the furthest generation count of the airway the bronchoscope reached, force incurred to the phantoms, and NASA-Task Load Index.

Transbronchial biopsy catheter enhanced by a multisection continuum robot with follow-the-leader motion.

Purpose: Current manual catheters for transbronchial biopsy in the lung lack a steering ability, which hampers a physician's ability to reach nodules in the peripheral lung. The objective of this paper is to design and build a multisection robot with a follow-the-leader motion and compare the performance of the conventional catheter and our robotic catheter in the right main and right segmental lobar bronchus.

Methods: A three-section continuum robot with an outer diameter of 3 mm was developed.

Analysis of longitudinal diffusion-weighted images in healthy and pathological aging: An ADNI study.

Background & New Method: The widely used framework of voxel-based morphometry for analyzing neuroimages is extended here to model longitudinal imaging data by exchanging the linear model with a linear mixed-effects model. The new approach is employed for analyzing a large longitudinal sample of 756 diffusion-weighted images acquired in 177 subjects of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging initiative (ADNI).

Results And Comparison With Existing Methods: While sample- and group-level results from both approaches are equivalent, the mixed-effect model yields information at the single subject level.

Breast tissue characterization with photon-counting spectral CT imaging: a postmortem breast study.

Purpose: To investigate the feasibility of breast tissue characterization in terms of water, lipid, and protein contents with a spectral computed tomographic (CT) system based on a cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) photon-counting detector by using postmortem breasts.

Materials And Methods: Nineteen pairs of postmortem breasts were imaged with a CZT-based photon-counting spectral CT system with beam energy of 100 kVp. The mean glandular dose was estimated to be in the range of 1.