Optical Coherence Tomography Guided Laser Cochleostomy: Towards the Accuracy on Tens of Micrometer Scale

Lasers have been proven to be precise tools for bone ablation. Applying no mechanical stress to the patient, they are potentially very suitable for microsurgery on fragile structures such as the inner ear. However, it remains challenging to control the laser-bone ablation without injuring embedded s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BioMed research international 2014-01, Vol.2014 (2014), p.1-10
Main Authors: Klenzner, Thomas, Wörn, Heinz, Raczkowsky, Jörg, Huber, Robert, Wieser, Wolfgang, Weller, Marcel, Pfeiffer, Tom, Zhang, Yaokun, Schipper, Jörg
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ablation
Accuracy
Animals
Biomedical research
Bones
Channels
Cochlea
Cochlea - pathology
Cochlea - surgery
Drilling
Health aspects
Humans
Injuries
Laser Therapy - methods
Lasers
Lasers in medicine
Lasers, Gas
Mathematical analysis
Medical examination
Micrometers
Open access publishing
Optical Coherence Tomography
Optical tomography
Otolaryngology
Physiological aspects
Process controls
Robotics
Software packages
Surgery
Swine
Tomography, Optical Coherence - methods
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Summary:Lasers have been proven to be precise tools for bone ablation. Applying no mechanical stress to the patient, they are potentially very suitable for microsurgery on fragile structures such as the inner ear. However, it remains challenging to control the laser-bone ablation without injuring embedded soft tissue. In this work, we demonstrate a closed-loop control of a short-pulsed CO2 laser to perform laser cochleostomy under the monitoring of an optical coherence tomography (OCT) system. A foresighted detection of the bone-endosteum-perilymph boundary several hundred micrometers before its exposure has been realized. Position and duration of the laser pulses are planned based on the residual bone thickness distribution. OCT itself is also used as a highly accurate tracking system for motion compensation between the target area and the optics. During ex vivo experimental evaluation on fresh porcine cochleae, the ablation process terminated automatically when the thickness of the residual tissue layer uniformly reached a predefined value. The shape of the resulting channel bottom converged to the natural curvature of the endosteal layer without injuring the critical structure. Preliminary measurements in OCT scans indicated that the mean absolute accuracy of the shape approximation was only around 20 μm.
ISSN:2314-6133
2314-6141
DOI:10.1155/2014/251814