ESD CYCLOPS: A new robotic surgical system for GI surgery

TL;DR

The paper introduces ESD CYCLOPS, a robotic system designed to enhance GI surgery by providing improved force exertion and dexterity, facilitating complex endoscopic procedures like ESD.

Contribution

It presents a novel bimanual robotic attachment for endoscopes that improves operational workspace and force capabilities for GI surgeries.

Findings

Achieves up to 46N force exertion

Mean error of 0.217mm in elliptical tracing

Successful ex vivo ESD performed by a GI surgeon

Abstract

Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers account for 1.5 million deaths worldwide. Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection (ESD) is an advanced therapeutic endoscopy technique with superior clinical outcome due to the minimally invasive and en bloc removal of tumours. In the western world, ESD is seldom carried out, due to its complex and challenging nature. Various surgical systems are being developed to make this therapy accessible, however, these solutions have shown limited operational workspace, dexterity, or low force exertion capabilities. The current paper shows the ESD CYCLOPS system, a bimanual surgical robotic attachment that can be mounted at the end of any flexible endoscope. The system is able to achieve forces of up to 46N, and showed a mean error of 0.217mm during an elliptical tracing task. The workspace and instrument dexterity is shown by pre-clinical ex vivo trials, in which ESD is succesfully performed by a GI surgeon. The system is currently undergoing pre-clinical in vivo validation.