Researchers in Zurich successfully perform remote magnetic endoscopy on a live pig in Hong Kong

Researchers at ETH Zurich and The Chinese University of Hong Kong have succeeded for the primary time in utilizing distant management to carry out a magnetic endoscopy on a dwell pig. The researchers managed the probe from Zurich whereas the animal was on the working desk in Hong Kong.

It’s three o’clock within the morning, and Alexandre Mesot is in a room in Zurich working an endoscope. The doctoral pupil in ETH’s Multi-Scale Robotics Lab, headed by Professor Bradley Nelson, appears at a display screen displaying dwell pictures of the endoscopy as he manipulates the joystick of a PlayStation controller. The working theater, nevertheless, is in Hong Kong—greater than 9,300 kilometers away.

With a delay of solely round 300 milliseconds, a 4-millimeter-thick probe responds to the alerts from Zurich because it strikes across the abdomen of a dwell (anesthetized) pig within the working theater in Hong Kong. Mesot guides a digicam to look at the animal’s abdomen wall and takes tissue samples with a tiny gripper arm.

This process is the primary ever remote-controlled magnetic endoscopy. Details have simply been revealed within the journal Advanced Intelligent Systems.

Two issues have been essential for this breakthrough: a magnetic navigation system developed at ETH Zurich with a magnetically operated endoscope, and a safe, quick web connection to the working theater.

Safety first

In the working theater, the remote-controlled process was supported and monitored by surgeons from the Faculty of Medicine at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Before Mesot took over the navigation of the probe in Zurich, it was examined within the working theater by a staff from the Multi-Scale Robotics Lab and by the Hong Kong surgeons. The latter additionally inserted the magnetic endoscope by means of the pig’s mouth into its abdomen.

The endoscope is managed by a magnetic area generated by Navion, a surgical navigation system that ETH Professor Nelson and his staff developed. “Not solely can the endoscope be bent in any route due to its magnetic head; it is also smaller and simpler to maneuver than standard units,” Mesot explains.

Magnetic endoscopies are much less aggravating

Thanks to the excellent flexibility of the magnetic endoscope, Mesot was capable of perform a maneuver known as a retroflexion within the animal’s abdomen with none issues: after getting into the abdomen cavity, the endoscope is bent backwards 180 levels to examine the abdomen’s entrance. This advanced process reveals that magnetic endoscopes may be manipulated remotely at the least as flexibly as commonplace units.

In addition, the smaller endoscope can be inserted through the nostril in people reasonably than through the esophagus, as is common with standard endoscopies. This is much less aggravating, as sufferers do not should be totally sedated and may keep awake throughout the process to supply suggestions. The magnetic endoscope can be doubtlessly appropriate to be used in youngsters, for whom the standard probes are too giant.

Minimally invasive most cancers screening and higher care in distant areas

Professor Nelson from the Multi-Scale Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich is already pondering forward. “In the following step of our analysis, we hope to hold out a teleoperated endoscopy on a human abdomen. There’s a variety of potential on this know-how. Here I’m pondering of minimally invasive procedures within the gastrointestinal tract, resembling most cancers screening.”

Dr. Shannon Melissa Chan, Assistant Professor within the Faculty of Medicine at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, additionally factors out, “Teleoperated endoscopy can be utilized not just for coaching surgeons, but additionally for offering diagnostic and surgical care in distant areas, particularly in locations the place there is a lack of native experience. We may even present skilled nurses with directions from a distance on perform the procedures.”