A new minimally invasive heart surgery instrument for atrial fibrillation treatment : first in vitro and animal tests.

Joël Abadie (1) , Alain Faure (2) , Nicolas Chaillet (1) , Patrick Rougeot (1) , D. Beaufort (1) , J.P. Goldstein (3) , P.A. Finlay (4) , G. Bogaerts (5)

1 LAB - Laboratoire d'automatique de Besançon
2 SMP - Surgical Microrobotic Project
3 DCS - Department of Cardiac Surgery
4 Armstrong Healthcare Ltd
5 GeBo Consult

The paper presents a new robotic system for beating heart surgery. The final goal of this project is to develop a tele-operated system for the thoracoscopic treatment of patients with atrial fibrillation. The system consists of a robot that moves an innovative end-effector used to perform lines as in the Cox-Maze technique. This device is an electrode mesh that is introduced in the thorax through a trocar and is deployed inside the left atrium, where it can create selective ablation lines at any atrial region, using radio frequency. The current version of the umbrella has 22 electrodes. Using visual feedback from an ultrasound based navigation system, the surgeon can choose which electrodes on the mesh to activate. Once the umbrella is in contact with the endocardium of the left atrium, at the expected position, the surgeon activates the chosen electrodes sequentially. The umbrella can then be moved to another position. In vitro and in vivo animal tests have been carried out in order to test and improve the instrument, the robotic system and the operative procedure.

Mots clés: Surgical robotics; heart surgery; RF ablation; PDMS.; PDMS

Domaines: Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique

Joël Abadie, Alain Faure, Nicolas Chaillet, Patrick Rougeot, D. Beaufort, et al.. A new minimally invasive heart surgery instrument for atrial fibrillation treatment : first in vitro and animal tests.. The International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery, 2006, 2 (2), pp.188-196. ⟨hal-00260626⟩