Intraoperative integration concepts for a flat-panel ultrasound robot

In Germany there are over 20,000 incidences of renal cell carcinomas per year. Laparoscopic resections of these tumors became more and more popular over the last years. Intraoperative imaging during these interventions is performed by video laparoscopes, allowing only for superficial imaging. Therefore, the surgeon has no intraoperative information of the layout of the tumor in the organ. To overcome this problem Gumprecht et al. [1] proposed a new concept for a robotized transcutaneous ultrasound probe. However, so far there were no concepts available on how to integrate the robot with the operating room table. In this paper, we propose two concepts on how to integrate the robot with the operating room table: A side-holding concept for patients laying laterally and an integration into the operating room table for supine patients. Our experimental results show that our proposed concepts are feasible.