Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects

Lung cancer remains the most common cancer and the most common cause of death from cancer in North America. Secondary effects of treating cancer may be mitigated through a minimally invasive approach. While promising, all minimally invasive surgery and therapy (MIST) methods suffer from the same problem: without direct access to the target tissues, reliable and accurate tumour localization remains a formidable challenge. The objective of this research is to develop and validate a system for MIST, with particular emphasis on lung cancer, which provides accurate tumour localization through the integration of tracked and fused kinesthetic, tactile, ultrasound (US), and computed tomography (CT) data, and enables accurate delivery of ablative therapies. The proposed research will consist of the following steps: 1. Develop a minimally invasive mechatronic tool capable of performing multi-modal tumour localization. This device will collect data from tactile, force, position and US imaging sensors that will be fused to provide robust and accurate localization data. 2. Develop patient-specific procedures that allow tracking of lung tumours with respect to known anatomical landmarks using preoperative CT and intraoperative US in order to compensate for the effect of insufflation, lung deflation, respiration, and patient motion. 3. Develop a sensor fusion strategy that combines the intraoperative multi-sensor data from the tumour localization instrument with patient-specific preoperative CT. 4. Develop modular minimally invasive ""smart"" instruments for image-guided tumour ablation. These instruments will allow precise delivery of probe- and needle-based ablative therapies, and will incorporate real-time position tracking and provide active tremor compensation. 5. Integrate the above elements into a complete surgical platform that presents the information effectively for increased safety and reliability. The outcomes of procedures performed with the proposed system will be compared to those performed using current MIST techniques to assess the effectiveness of the system. Evaluation will progress through tissue phantoms, ex vivo tissue and in vivo animal trials.