Autonomous Prostate Biopsy

ended

The PROST PoC proposal aims at demonstrating the technical, clinical and economical feasibility of autonomous prostate biopsy execution, by applying the technologies developed by the ERC project ARS (Autonomous Robotic Surgery) to a robotic prostate biopsy system. Prostate biopsy is a good candidate for the application of automation in clinical practice since it is a rather simple procedure, carried out on more than 1 Mil/year patients in Europe, and still affected by a diagnostic error higher than 30%. This means that about 300,000 patients in Europe alone, are directed to therapies that will require repeated biopsies or will make the patient undergo unnecessary surgeries. Errors are mostly due to human inaccuracy in identifying the correct biopsy target and in executing the free-hand biopsy. The PROST project aims at removing the human from the identification/execution process, thus reducing the diagnosis and execution errors. The project is made feasible by two enabling factors: the on going ERC project ARS that is developing sensing and control architecture for autonomous surgical robots, and the availability of a prototype of robot for prostate biopsy developed with a grant by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. The PROST project will integrate the sensing and control architecture with the biopsy hardware and avoid lengthy hardware and software development. Thus, the first objective of the proposal is the technical validation of the autonomous prostate biopsy system. Then, extensive cadaveric tests will determine the clinical rationale to use an autonomous robot for prostate biopsy. Finally, the third objective of PROST is to develop and validate a business case for the commercial exploitation of the PROST prototype, addressing low cost/high volume cases. The positive results of these validations will be a strong motivation for the development of a start up company that will industrialize and medically certify the system.