Cricothyrotomy is a life-saving emergency intervention that secures an alternate airway route after a neck injury or obstruction. The procedure starts with identifying the correct location (the cricothyroid membrane) for creating an incision to insert an endotracheal tube. This location is determined using a combination of visual and palpation cues. Enabling robot-assisted remote cricothyrotomy may extend this life-saving procedure to injured soldiers or patients who may not be readily accessible for on-site intervention during search-and-rescue scenarios. As a first step towards achieving this goal, this paper explores the feasibility of palpation-assisted landmark identification for cricothyrotomy. Using a cricothyrotomy training simulator, we explore several alternatives for in-situ remote localization of the cricothyroid membrane. These alternatives include a) unaided telemanipulation, b) telemanipulation with direct force feedback, c) telemanipulation with superimposed motion excitation for online stiffness estimation and display, and d) fully autonomous palpation scan initialized based on the user's understanding of key anatomical landmarks. Using the manually digitized cricothyroid membrane location as ground truth, we compare these four methods for accuracy and repeatability of identifying the landmark for cricothyrotomy, time of completion, and ease of use. These preliminary results suggest that the accuracy of remote cricothyrotomy landmark identification is improved when the user is aided with visual and force cues. They also show that, with proper user initialization, landmark identification using remote palpation is feasible - therefore satisfying a key pre-requisite for future robotic solutions for remote cricothyrotomy.
翻译:骨髓切开是一种挽救生命的紧急干预, 可以在颈部受伤或阻塞后确保替代航道的备用航道。 程序从确定正确位置( 红心细胞膜) 开始, 以创建切开插入内肠切开管。 这个位置是使用视觉和触摸信号的组合来确定的。 启用机器人辅助的远程红心切开程序可以将这一救生程序扩展至受伤士兵或病人, 在搜索和报复情景下, 他们可能无法随时在现场进行可行的干预。 作为实现这一目标的第一步, 本文将探索建立切开切切开管的切开切开口的正确位置( crecothyro membrane) 。 使用红心细胞前科切开口的远程解析程序, 直接进行远程解析, 进行远程解析, 进行远程解析的解析, 以远程解析, 使用直线解的直径解路路路路路的直径分析, 使用直径直径直径直径的直径直径直径直径直径路路路路路路路路路路路路, 。