Rolling Indentation Probe for Tissue Abnormality Identification During Minimally Invasive Surgery

This paper presents a novel optical fiber-based rolling indentation probe designed to measure the stiffness distribution of a soft tissue while rolling over the tissue surface during minimally invasive surgery. By fusing the measurements along rolling paths, the probe can generalize a mechanical image to visualize the stiffness distribution within the internal tissue structure. Since tissue abnormalities are often firmer than the surrounding organ or parenchyma, a surgeon then can localize abnormalities by analyzing the image. The performance of the developed probe was validated using simulated soft tissues. Results show that the probe can measure both force and indentation depth accurately with different orientations when the probe approached and rolled on the tissue surface. In addition, experiments for tumor, identification through rolling indentation were conducted. The size and embedded depth of the tumor, as well as the stiffness ratio between the tumor and tissue, were varied during tests. Results demonstrate that the probe can effectively and accurately identify the embedded tumors.