Design and evaluation of endoscope remote actuator for MRI-guided Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangio-Pancreatography (ERCP)

The use of intra-operative Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has the potential to significantly improve a wide range of diagnostic and therapeutic medical procedures. A major obstacle to widespread adoption of these procedures is the lack of tools available to access the patient and perform complex tasks within the MRI environment. This paper presents a system that enables an endoscope to be actuated remotely whilst the patient is inside the MRI scanner. The actuation system utilises ultrasonic motors to drive six degrees of freedom, and is designed so that the endoscope can be rapidly converted from manual to remote actuation during the procedure. Preliminary evaluations have shown that the actuation system allows complex endoscopic tasks to be successfully completed in a simulated environment. When actuated in the MRI scanner, the remote actuation system causes less than a 1% loss of image signal-to-noise ratio.