Contribution to a new robotic concept of prostate brachytherapy

In this paper, we experiment a new robotic concept for the brachytherapy of prostate, using adaptive tracking of mobile targets under ultrasound control of industrial robot. Contours detection´ method of the prostate from ultrasound images is presented. The targets to be achieved safely by the robot, are defined from a virtual and adaptive grid. A virtual simulator is used firstly, to transfer the coordinates of the targets from the image to the robot frame, then secondly to supervise by comparing between the theoritical and experimental trajectories, in order to improve the accuracy of the robot control. Experimental results applied on a prostate phantom from one access point, can show the advantage of the proposed concept in the context of reducing trauma and recovery times for real patients.