Using the BioTac as a tumor localization tool

Robotically-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery (RMIS) offers many benefits to patients, yet introduces new challenges to surgeons due to the loss of tactile feedback that would be available in open surgery. This makes many intraoperative procedures such as tumor localization or other technically intricate and delicate tasks increasingly difficult. Reestablishing the ability to feel for surgeons during RMIS would improve the quality and safety of these surgeries and facilitate conversion of many procedures requiring touch that are traditionally performed as open-surgery. In this research a biomimetic tactile sensor (BioTac, SynTouch LLC) was evaluated for localization of artificial tumors. Various signal processing techniques implementing spatial and temporal derivatives were implemented into a graphical user interface to aid in the localization of tumors when explored by a human operator. The ability to localize tumors using the BioTac sensor was compared to performance of the human finger. The BioTac sensor was found to be particularly effective for superficial tumors (3mm deep), achieving a detection rate of 94.1%. The BioTac was also able to detect small tumors 3mm in diameter at a detection rate of 61.5%, and tumors at a depth of 12mm with a detection rate of 60.0%. While human subjects were more effective at localizing most tumors, the BioTac was often able to do so at lighter forces.