A workspace-orientated needle-guiding robot for 3T MRI-guided transperineal prostate intervention: evaluation of in-bore workspace and MRI compatibility.

Background: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided prostate interventions have been introduced to enhance the cancer detection. For accurate needle positioning, in-bore-operated robotic systems have been developed and optimal use of the confined in-bore space become a critical engineering challenge.

Methods: As preliminary evaluation of our prostate intervention robot, we conducted a workspace design analysis, using a new evaluation method that we developed for in-bore-operated robots for transperineal prostate interventions, and an MRI compatibility study.

Results: The workspace analysis resulted in the effective workspace (VW ) of 0.32, which is greater than that of our early prototype, despite the current robot being ca. 50% larger than the early prototype in sectional space. The MRI compatibility study resulted in < 15% signal:noise ratio (SNR) reduction.

Conclusions: The new workspace evaluation method quantifies the workspace utilization of the in-bore-operated robots for MRI-guided transperineal prostate interventions, providing a useful tool for evaluation and new robot design. The robot creates insignificant electromagnetic noise during typical prostate imaging sequences.