Force feedback plays a significant role in minimally invasive surgery: results and analysis.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the role of force feedback with applications to minimally invasive surgery (MIS). Two research hypotheses were tested using our automated laparoscopic grasper.


BACKGROUND
Conventional laparoscopic tools do not have the ability of providing force feedback to a surgeon when in use with or without robotic surgical systems. Loss of haptic (force and tactile) feedback in MIS procedures is a disadvantage to surgeons since they are conventionally used to palpating tissues to diagnose tissues as normal or abnormal. Therefore, the need exists to incorporate force feedback into laparoscopic tools.


METHODS
We have developed an automated laparoscopic grasper with force feedback capability to help surgeons differentiate tissue stiffness through a haptic interface device. We tested our system with 20 human subjects (10 surgeons and 10 nonsurgeons) using our grasper to evaluate the role of force feedback to characterize tissues and answer 2 research hypotheses.


RESULTS
Our experiments confirmed 1 of our 2 research hypotheses, namely, providing both vision and force feedback leads to better tissue characterization than only vision feedback or only force feedback.


CONCLUSIONS
We have validated 1 of our 2 research hypotheses regarding incorporating force feedback with vision feedback to characterize tissues of varying stiffness.
Tholey
Gregory
G
Program for Robotics, Intelligent Sensing, and Mechatronics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Desai
Jaydev P
JP
Castellanos
Andres E
AE
D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005246:Feedback; D006801:Humans; D020100:Hydrogels; D019060:Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014110:Touch; D014796:Visual Perception
D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D020100:Hydrogels