Scotland is creating a way to carry out procedures using robotic systems in the hopes to increase positive results in cancer surgery.

£1.25 million has been invested into the project by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The new technique works by determining what quantity of tissue is cancer-affected and has to be taken out. It will give doctors immediate responses so that they can do a better job in identifying normal vs affected tissue.

“£1.25 million has been invested into the project by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council“

Mechanical measures are conducted around the tumour. "Mechanical intelligence" algorithms will then produce an interpretation of these figures to create a comprehensive picture of the quantity of tissue affected and help them choose how much to remove during surgery.

Dr Yuhang Chen, from the National Robotarium, explained that “this new technique will offer surgeons a quantitative, real-time, reliable and evidence-based method for determining the optimal surgical margin to make when removing a tumour. Surgeons operating along with a ‘keyhole’ or using techniques for minimally invasive surgery need to identify different structures or diseased areas. Our work is aimed at identifying the optimum margin in cancer surgery.”

Elements of “Laser manufacturing, fibre-optic sensors, micromechanical probing and computational modelling” helps to produce a “mechanical ‘imaging’ probe”. This is able to identify which tissue is affected by cancer with “a standard minimally-invasive surgery instrument.” They are also developing a “‘mechanically-intelligent’ data modelling framework” to “effectively eliminate the margin of error for surgeons.”

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