In vitro patient-tailored anatomical model of cerebral artery for evaluating medical robots and systems for intravascular neurosurgery

In this paper, we propose an in vitro patient-tailored biological model of human cerebral artery, an innovative platform for simulating intravascular neurosurgery to evaluate medical robots and devices. This anatomically accurate model reproduces 3-dimensional configuration of individual arteries with an artery-like thin membranous structure made of silicone elastomer. Its modeling resolution is 13 μm. Presented modeling methodology also allows constructing any hollow structure, which is suitable for robot evaluations, making use of CAD. Presented model also reproduces the physical properties of arterial tissue with errors less than 5% (that include elastic modulus, poisson´s ratio and frictional coefficient). Thus the cerebral arterial model reproduces not only the behavior of arteries caused by surgical operations, but also the dynamic behavior of surgical robots and devices (e.g. elastic deformation and slip/stick motion). Furthermore, we also propose a novel method that allows developers to evaluate 3-dimensional stress condition on arterial wall, which is caused by surgical operations, by making use of the photoelastic effect. As there are almost no realistic hardware platform enough to fairly evaluate medical robots and devices, it should provide an advanced testing environment for developing robots and other various medical equipments, especially for intravascular neurosurgery.