University news

A research project aiming to find new ways to use ultrasonic tools for complex, robot-assisted surgery has received more than £6m in funding.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has granted £6.1m for the University of Glasgow to lead a project called ‘Surgery enabled by ultrasonics’.

Over the next five years, the Universities of Glasgow, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Leeds and Southampton will work together to take advantage of the opportunities offered by ultrasonic technologies to ensure they are widely adopted for surgery.

Ultrasonic tools are already in use in surgery, but their full potential has still to be realised. The researchers will develop miniaturised ultrasonic tools relying on different principles to excite the surgical tip. Miniaturisation is possible because of new dynamic structures for the tips and emerging piezocrystal materials with much higher energy density.

The devices will be delivered deep into the human body by the tentacles of new surgical robots. This will enable minimally-invasive surgeries, offering high precision, low force, low temperature and better preservation of delicate tissue structures. Ultimately, this will allow more procedures to be carried out in out-patient clinics or with day surgery.

Margaret Lucas, Professor of Ultrasonics, works in Medical & Industrial Ultrasonics in the University of Glasgow’s School of Engineering.

Professor Lucas, the principal investigator on the project, said: “Many benefits will be delivered from new forms of ultrasonic tools. Traditional tools require surgeons to use high forces to cut through bone, for example, where an ultrasonic tool can be tuned to produce an effortless cut.

“That tuning process also ensures that the ultrasonic device can be tissue selective, able to cut through one tissue without damage to others.

“Currently, ultrasonic surgical devices suffer from a lack of understanding of the beneficial and damaging effects of high power ultrasonic vibrations interacting with tissue. My interdisciplinary research team of Engineers and Clinicians will overcome this by relating cell and tissue responses to the motion of ultrasound via ultra-high-speed imaging. The new understanding will aid the design of revolutionary new tools.”

The researchers will produce miniaturised ultrasonic tools alongside tentacle-like robots to reach inside the human body. Combined with research on the effects of ultrasound on human tissue, instruments will be produced to perform complex procedures more quickly, effectively, and safely.

The ‘Surgery Enabled by Ultrasonics’ project team are:

• Margaret Lucas, Professor of Ultrasonics, University of Glasgow
• Sandy Cochran, Professor of Ultrasound Materials and Systems, University of Glasgow
• Fabrice Pierron, Professor of Solid Mechanics, University of Southampton
• Hamish Simpson, Professor of Orthopaedics and Trauma, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, University of Edinburgh
• Pietro Valdastri, Professor of Robotics and Autonomous Systems, University of Leeds
• Damien Walmsley, Professor of Restorative Dentistry, University of Birmingham

 

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First published: 12 November 2018