Optical Coherence Tomography Guided Robotic Needle Insertion for Deep Anterior Lamellar Keratoplasty
Objective: Deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK) significantly reduces the post-transplantation morbidity in patients eligible for partial-thickness cornea grafts. The popular "big bubble" technique for DALK is so challenging, however, that a significant fraction of corneal pneumodissection attempts fail for surgeons without extensive DALK-specific experience, even with previous-generation cross-sectional optical coherence tomography (OCT) guidance. We seek to develop robotic, volumetric OCT-guided technology capable of facilitating or automating the difficult needle insertion step in DALK. Methods: Our system provides for real-time volumetric corneal imaging, segmentation, and tracking of the needle insertion to display feedback for surgeons and to generate needle insertion plans ...
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