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Ear Surgery, Second Most Difficult Surgery after Brain Surgery... First Application of 3-D
Imaging Technology
July 27 th , 2011
(Tier I general daily with a daily circulation of 2.1 million) http://news.donga.com/3/all/20110726/39104805/1
Ear Surgery, Second Most Difficult Surgery after Brain Surgery... First Application of 3-D
Imaging Technology
3-D Robot Gives Doctors a Steady Hand; Domestic Development of Surgery Robot for Middle Ear
Infection
"Ear surgery may be the second most difficult after brain surgery," says Dr. Byung Ju Yi, a professor of the Department of Electronics & System Engineering at the ERICA Campus (formerly Ansan Campus) of
Hanyang University in Ansan in Gyeonggi-do, in his office while looking at a robot he developed himself.
It is commonly recognized in the medical community that it is difficult to guarantee good results from ear surgery. Inflammation in the middle ear, referring to the part from the eardrum to the cochlea, spreads into the bone (temporal bone), requiring operation to grind away bone. This can cause problems such as facial paralysis and/or hearing loss because important tissues such as nerves and meninges are intertwined around that part. If the location of an operation drill inside the human body could be monitored in real time and there were a technology to prevent the drill from getting too close to nerves, would it be possible to perform ear surgery more easily and without accidents? Professor Yi's team resolved the problem by creating a surgery robot utilizing 3-D imaging technology for the first time in the world.
Professor Yi allowed me to experience surgery using the newly developed robot, ESOBOT (Ear Surgical
Robot). I moved the drill attached to the end of the robot arm while watching the monitor beside the robot. The temporal bone model behind the ear, which looked like the ankle bone, was shaved whenever
I moved my hand. The monitor showed images of the patient's internal ear and the drill. Whenever I moved the drill forward and backward, the drill on the monitor moved accordingly. The robot arm was a sensor that detected the location of the drill.
"That part is the ear nerve. Try moving the surgical drill closer."
Professor Yi asked me to hurt an important organ intentionally. I moved my wrist, and a beep sounded immediately and the monitor turned red. I was frightened and stretched my arm forward, but the drill would not move any more towards the nerve. It only slid to the side as if it had hit a defensive wall. The robot arm controlled its movement by itself.
ESOBOT was jointly developed by Professor Yi's team, the Medical School of Hanyang University, and Jae
Sung Hong, a professor at the Department of Robot Engineering of Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of
Science & Technology (DGIST). They first developed a technology to transform the facial contours of patients into 3-D data by the CT (computed tomography) technique and attached an electric surgery drill to the robot arm. The robot drills a hole into the temporal bone, allowing surgery inside the middle ear.
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Experiments are conducted with mannequins to increase the precision. Clinical tests are expected within five years after operations with corpses for dissection and animal experiments.
Hearing of the development of ESOBOT, Sung Wook Jeong, a professor at the Department of Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) of Dong-A University Medical Center in Busan, said, "What ENT doctors are most careful about in surgery is not to hurt nerves, not even coming with 0.1mm of them. Simple real-time navigation will be of tremendous help toward avoiding nerve damage."
Professor Yi's team's research was selected last month for the New Industrial Source Project in Robot
Area 2011 by the Ministry of Knowledge and Economy and will be granted KRW13 billion for research over five years. Commercialization will be led by Koh Young Technology Inc., a company specializing in robot technology. The product is expected to cost about KRW200 million per unit.
Professor Yi said, "We are going to pursue commercialization in cooperation with Hanyang University and
Asan Medical Center in Seoul. The research findings will be presented at the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers (IEEE) conference, which Dr. Yi is a member, held in September."
[Reporter Jun Seung-min]
Photo caption: A researcher on Professor Yi's research team demonstrates the safety of ESOBOT, a surgery robot using 3-D imaging technology for middle ear infections.
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