The ultra-soft tentacle, which measures just 2 millimetres in diameter and is controlled by magnets, can reach some of the smallest bronchial tubes and could transform the treatment of lung cancer.
It paves the way for a more accurate, tailored, and far less invasive approach to treatment and has been developed by engineers, scientists and clinicians based at the STORM Lab in Leeds.
The researchers tested the magnetic tentacle robot on the lungs of a cadaver and found that it can travel 37% deeper than the standard equipment and leads to less tissue damage.
The results of their investigations, which were funded by the European Research Council, are published today in Nature Engineering Communications.
“This new approach has the advantage of being specific to the anatomy, softer than the anatomy and fully-shape controllable via magnetics. These three main features have the potential to revolutionize navigation inside the body.”
Professor Pietro Valdastri, Director of the STORM Lab and research supervisor
Lung cancer screening programmes have led to better survival rates but have also highlighted the urgent need to find non-invasive ways to diagnose and treat patients early.
As well as improving navigation within the lungs during biopsies, the magnetic tentacle robot could pave the way for far less invasive treatment, allowing clinicians to target only malicious cells while allowing healthy tissue and organs to continue normal function.
The team will now set about collecting all the data that will allow them to start human trials.
How magnetic tentacle robots can work together.
Researchers at the STORM Lab have also been investigating ways of controlling two independent magnetic robots so that they can work together in a confined area of the human anatomy, allowing one to move a camera and the other to control a laser to remove tumours.
The devices are made of silicone to minimise tissue damage and are steered by magnets mounted on robotic arms outside the patient’s body.
Using a replica of a skull, the team successfully trialled the use of two robots to carry out endonasal brain surgery, a technique which allows a surgeon to go through the nose to operate on areas at the front of the brain and the top of the spine.
The researchers needed the magnetic robots to move independently of each other so that one could move the camera, while the other could direct a laser onto a tumour.
Normally, two magnets placed closely together would attract each other, creating a challenge for the researchers. They overcame it by designing the bodies of the tentacles in a way that they can bend only in specific directions and by relocating the north and south poles in each magnetic robot tentacle.
They were then able to simulate the removal of a benign tumour on the pituitary gland at the base of the cranium, proving for the first time ever that it is possible to control two of the robots in one confined area of the body.
The findings of their research, which was jointly funded by the European Research Council and the Physical Sciences Research Council, is published today in Advanced Intelligent Systems.
(Newswise/SS)
