HIFU Positioning Robot for Less-Invasive Fetal Treatment

Abstract

Fetus sacrococcygeal teratoma is a fatal disease which makes blood flow abnormal. Popular approach for this treatment is to cut the teratoma off, nonetheless it is high-invasive with risks. So the use of HIFU(High Intensity focused ultrasound) is now attracting attention because of its capability of burning vessels to stop blood flow without opening the uterine wall. For precise HIFU treatment, HIFU transducer is required to have movable focus point under the guidance of 3D-ultrasound image, and to have more rough movable area to find the target in real time. In this paper, we present a newly developed HIFU positioning robot which holds a HIFU transducer and the US probe. Initial evaluation test of positioning accuracy was performed and high precise positioning was achieved.