Medical instruments identi cation via a luminescent micro-particle coating as an alternative for existing identi cation methods

Medical Asset Management (MAM), track and tracing of medical instruments throughout a hospital, is very comprehensive and complicated. To implement such a system on individual instrument level, a technique that can create Unique Device Identification (UDI) codes is needed. Current UDI systems, such as RFID and barcode scanning, do not suffice....

Intra-operative estimation of surgical progress

Driven by rising health care costs due to factors including advancing technology and an aging population, cost-effectiveness has become an increasingly important aspect of care delivery, with the operating room (OR) being a specific area of interest. By means of a surgical process model (SPM), OR systems can gain an understanding of clinical...

Alternative treatment for spina bifida

Liver tissue mimicking materials for image-guided needle interventions

Due to the increasing prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes, the occurrence of liver disease has also increased. In the last decade, important improvements have been realised in methods to treat liver disease, especially in the field of image-guided minimally invasive procedures. With the rapidly developing field of minimally invasive...

Hornet Fixation Device

Laparoscopic suturing can be very time consuming and frustrating for inexperienced surgeons. It is one of the hardest actions to perform in a laparoscopic fashion, but it remains the golden standard. There are alternative fixation methods such as automatic needle passers, knot-tying devices, staplers, tackers and adhesives but they all have...

Training in urology: The development of a tracking feedback system for flexible scopes

During the training of new doctors in cystoscopy a problem could occur. When the trainee controls the cystoscope, the supervising doctor is focussed on the scope images on a monitor. Because the supervising doctor is not holding the scope, location feedback is absent. This makes it difficult to determine whether the entire inner surface of the...

Female fertility preservation: Developing a technique to harvest ovarian tissue fragments

Young women who suffer from cancer have a high change of becoming infertile as a consequence of the treatment. They would benefit from an effective fertility preservation method that allows natural conception. A new method, called autotransplantation of ovarian tissue, has much potential but improvements can be made. The method entails that...

Fiber-optic Fabry-Pérot interferometers for force sensing on the tip of a needle

Physicians use small variations in the needle insertion force to identify tissue properties and detect membrane punctures during needle insertion. Navigation of a needle towards the target tissue, for example to take a biopsy, is often based on detecting these variations in force. Literature shows that presenting physicians force feedback based...

Needle deflection in tissue

Introduction: One of the factors that contribute to the total needle-targeting error in medical procedures is needle deflection, which can lead to e.g. hemorrhage, prolonged intervention time and decreased treatment efficiency. This deflection can be defined as the deviation of the needle from its suspected straight insertion path. In this study...

Water efficient sterilization for humanitarian aid: A redesign of the Robustex 90L (autoclave)

This master thesis describes a graduation project that is elaborated for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) innovation project Sweden. MSF is an independent, international, medical humanitarian organization. The organization is specialized in providing humanitarian aid in (developing) countries. The goal of this project is to find a solution for the...

Cleaning of hollow instruments

Since a few decades, the use of Minimally Invasive Surgical (MIS) instruments has increased very fast. Minimally Invasive Surgery usesmuch smaller incisions compared to the traditional open surgery. The procedure is less invasive than open surgery and there is minimal damage to biological tissues at the point of entrance of the instrument. This...

A Simulation Platform for Proximity-based Infrared Positioning System in the Operating Room

Easy access to the current status of a surgery in the operating room (OR) can be beneficial to hospitals since it can improve the working efficiency and reduce the operational costs. Using indoor positioning systems (IPS) to obtain the position information of medical staffs in the OR could be an indirect method to enhance the awareness of the...

Force and pressure feedback during epidural needle insertion in the ligamentum flavum of piglets.

Epidural anesthesia is a commonly used anesthesia method during surgery or giving birth to a child. During the insertion of the needle in the back of the patient, the anesthetist has to interpret the different forces which requires extensive skills. To obtain these skills the residents train on patients, which is not without risk. Due to a lot...

Soft tissue dissection with an ultrasonic snare and the quantification of thermal spread

Thermal spread is the extend of lateral damage resulting from soft tissue dissection by means of an energetic surgical instrument. Both a true definition of this factor, and a consistent means to quantify it, are still lacking. This study attempts to standardize thermal spread by 1) listing the relevant medical, technical, and statistical...

Epidural Needle Insertion Simulator: A device for training resident anaesthesiologists

Epidural anaesthesia is a pain relief technique commonly performed on patients in labor. It requires insertion of a needle into patients back into the epidural space of the spine and inject anaesthetic. It is a blind procedure and anaesthesiologists rely only on the forces felt during needle insertion to determine the position of the needle tip....