Medical Devices

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This invention presents a robotic wrist and gripper that operate with three independent degrees of freedom (yaw, pitch and roll) for increased dexterity in minimally invasive surgical procedures. This is the smallest robotic wrist of its kind, and due to its size and unparalleled dexterity, this wrist enables complex surgical maneuvers for minimally invasive procedures in highly confined spaces. Examples of surgical areas benefiting from use of this wrist include natural orifice surgery, single port access surgery, and minimally invasive surgery. In particular, the proposed wrist allows for very high precision roll about the longitudinal axis of the gripper while overcoming problems of run-out motion typically encountered in existing wrists. Thus this wrist is particularly suitable for extreme precision maneuvers for micro-surgery in confined spaces.

Researchers have developed a non-invasive method for creating vascular occlusions at specific locations within a vessel using magnetic resonance guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS). The speed and efficacy of this approach is better than traditional vascular occlusion methods, and the method can be further enhanced through the use of phase shift nano-droplets. The approach is even applicable to large vessels that can be extremely challenging to ablate due to the heat sink effect. Ultimately, the ability to occlude selected vasculature could aid in the treatment of vascular malformations, hemorrhage control, and tumor devascularization.

Vanderbilt researchers have developed a breast implant device that minimizes potential contaminants during surgery by requiring no contact between the surgeon and the implant during insertion.

There is currently no radiotherapy phantom capable of quantitatively assessing all components of an online adaptive radiotherapy (online ART) system in a comprehensive end-to-end test.Represented here is a novel, rigid phantom that can simultaneously evaluate an online ART system's image acquisition, deformable image registration, contour propagation, plan re-optimization, dose calculation, and beam delivery in a single process that is robust, quantitative, and convenient.