Feasibility of robotic-assisted optical coherence tomography with extended scanning area for pre-transplant kidney monitoring

Abstract

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a medical imaging modality that can be used to quantify microstructural parameters of human kidneys in the cross-sectional view for kidney transplant surgeries to identify the organ’s health status. Existing desktop OCT devices suffer from limited scan area; therefore, it is difficult to evaluate the entire kidney. We explore the feasibility of combining the OCT system with a 7 degree-of-freedom robotic manipulator to leverage the robot’s large workspace and high localization accuracy for wider scan area and precise tracking of the OCT probe. With the proposed robotic-OCT procedure, the tissue sample can be detected using an RGB-depth camera for OCT scan path generation and scanned with online probe height optimization. A feasibility study was carried out by scanning an ex-vivo porcine kidney with the robotic-OCT system. Results show that over 38% of the tissue can be scanned. The tissue surface anatomy can be correctly reflected in 3D OCT image stitching; The online probe height optimization is able to maintain a constant distance between the probe and the tissue surface.