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research article

Flow driven robotic navigation of microengineered endovascular probes

Pancaldi-Giubbini, Lucio  
•
Dirix, Pietro Luciano Jakobus  
•
Fanelli, Adele  
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2020
Nature Communications

Minimally invasive medical procedures, such as endovascular catheterization, have considerably reduced procedure time and associated complications. However, many regions inside the body, such as in the brain vasculature, still remain inaccessible due to the lack of appropriate guidance technologies. Here, experimentally and through numerical simulations, we show that tethered ultra-flexible endovascular microscopic probes can be transported through tortuous vascular networks with minimal external intervention by harnessing hydrokinetic energy. Dynamic steering at bifurcations is performed by deformation of the probe head using magnetic actuation. We developed an endovascular microrobotic toolkit with a cross-sectional area that is orders of magnitude smaller than the smallest catheter currently available. Our technology has the potential to improve state-of-the-art practices as it enhances the reachability, reduces the risk of iatrogenic damage, significantly increases the speed of robot-assisted interventions, and enables the deployment of multiple leads simultaneously through a standard needle injection and saline perfusion. The navigation of catheters through blood vessels requires flexible guiding wires that are pushable and tractable at the same time. Pancaldi et al. rely on hydrodynamic forces and magnetic torque in order to access even rather small capillaries with an ultraflexible magnetomechanical probe.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1038/s41467-020-20195-z
Author(s)
Pancaldi-Giubbini, Lucio  
Dirix, Pietro Luciano Jakobus  
Fanelli, Adele  
Martins Lima, Augusto  
Stergiopulos, Nikolaos  
Mosimann, Pascal
Ghezzi, Diego  
Sakar, Selman  
Date Issued

2020

Publisher

Nature Research

Published in
Nature Communications
Volume

11

Issue

1

Article Number

6356

Subjects

continuum robots

•

electrode array

•

technologies

•

guidewire

•

design

•

brain

•

accurate

•

sensors

•

systems

•

stent

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
MICROBS  
Available on Infoscience
September 28, 2020
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/171990
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