• Garnette R Sutherland, Yaser Maddahi, Liu Shi Gan, Sanju Lama, and Kourosh Zareinia.
• Project NeuroArm, Department of Clinical Neuroscience and The Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, 3280 Hospital Dr NW, Calgary, AB T2N 4Z6, Canada.
• Surg Neurol Int. 2015 Jan 1; 6 (Suppl 1): S1-8.

BackgroundThe treatment of glioma remains a significant challenge with high recurrence rates, morbidity, and mortality. Merging image guided robotic technology with microsurgery adds a new dimension as they relate to surgical ergonomics, patient safety, precision, and accuracy.MethodsAn image-guided robot, called neuroArm, has been integrated into the neurosurgical operating room, and used to augment the surgical treatment of glioma in 18 patients. A case study illustrates the specialized technical features of a teleoperated robotic system that could well enhance the performance of surgery. Furthermore, unique positional and force information of the bipolar forceps during surgery were recorded and analyzed.ResultsThe workspace of the bipolar forceps in this robot-assisted glioma resection was found to be 25 × 50 × 50 mm. Maximum values of the force components were 1.37, 1.84, and 2.01 N along x, y, and z axes, respectively. The maximum total force was 2.45 N. The results indicate that the majority of the applied forces were less than 0.6 N.ConclusionRobotic surgical systems can potentially increase safety and performance of surgical operation via novel features such as virtual fixtures, augmented force feedback, and haptic high-force warning system. The case study using neuroArm robot to resect a glioma, for the first time, showed the positional information of surgeon's hand movement and tool-tissue interaction forces.

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