Mechanical analysis of end-to-end silk-sutured anastomosis for robot-assisted surgery

✍ Scribed by Ying Liu; Shuxin Wang; S. Jack Hu; Wei Qiu

• Publisher: Wiley (Robotic Publications)
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 274 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1478-5951
• DOI: 10.1002/rcs.276

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Background

Robot‐assisted anastomosis holds great promise for the future. To secure surgery quality, some key process factors, such as the force arrangement of sutures, should be provided because of the lack of haptic feedback in robotics systems

Methods

A model of anastomosis is presented to establish the mechanical relationship between vessel and sutures. Stress distribution of the vessel loaded by the suture was then achieved through finite‐element simulations, based on the material property test results. Further, experiments were performed to validate the reliability of the FEM simulation of the anastomosis process.

Results

To avoid blood osmosis, the allowable lower limit of the suture tension was 0.05 N. To keep the tissue free from injury, the allowable upper limit of tension on the suture was 0.4 N.

Conclusions

The study provided meaningful results for directing the robot‐assisted anastomosis procedure and design of the surgical tools. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.