Design and evaluation of a planning aid for port placement in robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery

Robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery is gaining popularity because it has been associated with reduced blood loss and shorter hospital stays for patients while providing ergonomic advantages to the surgeon over conventional laparoscopic surgery. However, it can result in a longer pre-operative planning process. The goal of this research was to provide an aid for placing ports and posing the robot. A field study was conducted with observations and interviews with expert surgeons to understand the challenges associated with the robot. A symbolic model of the robot was created along with a simplified method to model the patient torso to enable calculation of a suitable port placement and robot pose plan. A prototype planning aid incorporating patient modeling, port placement, and posing the robot was created and tested. Results indicate that providing a view of the robot pose from above helped subjects replicate the recommended pose on a model of the robot.