I-Corps: Ultra Minimally Invasive Surgical Tools

该I-Corps项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力通过提供小型和多功能手术器械来影响公共卫生。这些新工具以及促进广泛部署这些工具的商业模式有可能产生重大的公共卫生影响。这些工具将使外科医生能够通过人体上针头大小的开口而不是大切口进行手术。这将导致更快的患者恢复和更少的疼痛。此外，侵入性较小的手术应有望减少住院时间，从而为国家卫生保健系统节省大量资金。该I-Corps项目将研究这些新器械在鼻窦手术、眼科手术和神经外科等临床应用中的使用。这些都是该技术的巨大潜在市场。这个I-Corps项目是基于之前NSF资助的发现，即超弹性弯曲元件可以实现超小型可偏转手术工具。形成该I-Corps项目的基础的本发明涉及从超弹性镍钛诺管选择性地去除材料以产生铰接器械尖端。这是由于需要非常小直径（针大小）的机器人手腕。这个I-Corps项目的目标是确定它是否可以用于非机器人手持手术器械，以帮助外科医生进入人体内难以到达的位置（例如窦腔或脑室）。I-Corps流程将用于确定客户是否喜欢将该设备作为机器人系统或非机动手持工具。它还将用于确定每个外科专业的外科医生所需的用户界面，以及每个外科手术中最有价值的头端形状。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project impacts public health by providing small and versatile surgical instruments. These new tools, and the business models that facilitate wide deployment of them, have the potential to yield substantial public health impact. The tools will enable surgeons to perform surgery through needle-sized openings in the human body rather than large incisions. This will result in faster patient recovery and less pain. Also, less invasive surgeries should be expected to reduce hospitalization time and thus produce substantial financial savings for the national health care system. This I-Corps project will investigate the use of these new instruments in sinus surgery, eye surgery, and neurosurgery, among other clinical applications. Each of these are large potential markets for the technology.This I-Corps project is based on prior NSF-funded discovery that superelastic flexure elements can enable ultra-miniature deflectable surgical tools. The invention that forms the basis of this I-Corps project involves selective removal of material from a superelastic Nitinol tube to create an articulated instrument tip. This was motivated by the need for very small-diameter (needle-size) robot wrists. A goal of this I-Corps project is to determine whether it can be used in non-robotic hand-held surgical instruments to help surgeons access hard-to-reach locations in the human body (e.g. the sinus cavities or the ventricles in the brain). The I-Corps process will be used to determine whether customers prefer this device as a robotic system or as a non-motorized hand-held tool. It will also be used to determine which user interface is desired by surgeons in each surgical specialty, as well as which tip shapes are most valuable in each surgical procedure.