Design and Development of a Novel Soft and Inflatable Tactile Sensing Balloon for Early Diagnosis of Colorectal Cancer Polyps

TL;DR

This paper introduces a soft, inflatable tactile sensing balloon integrated with colonoscopes to improve early detection of colorectal cancer polyps through high-resolution textural and morphological analysis.

Contribution

It presents a novel inflatable tactile sensor that enhances colonoscopy capabilities by providing detailed, radiation-free tissue characterization, and demonstrates its effectiveness on various CRC polyp phantoms.

Findings

High-resolution textural mapping achieved

Effective differentiation of polyp stiffness levels

Successful simulated colonoscopy procedure conducted

Abstract

In this paper, with the goal of addressing the high early-detection miss rate of colorectal cancer (CRC) polyps during a colonoscopy procedure, we propose the design and fabrication of a unique inflatable vision-based tactile sensing balloon (VTSB). The proposed soft VTSB can readily be integrated with the existing colonoscopes and provide a radiation-free, safe, and high-resolution textural mapping and morphology characterization of CRC polyps. The performance of the proposed VTSB has been thoroughly characterized and evaluated on four different types of additively manufactured CRC polyp phantoms with three different stiffness levels. Additionally, we integrated the VTSB with a colonoscope and successfully performed a simulated colonoscopic procedure inside a tube with a few CRC polyp phantoms attached to its internal surface.