Design and development of the Hornet: a new suturing device for laparoscopic surgery

Laparoscopic suturing is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks in laparoscopic surgery. The long instrument shafts, two-dimensional view, and limited space for movement make simple actions, such as grasping and manipulating the needle and thread, difficult in the laparoscopic setting. To simplify the suturing process, the Hornet...

Non-invasive skin tension measurement as a surgical guide to minimize scar formation: Designing and validating a skin tension measurement device and performing a clinical study comparing skin tension between several locations and anatomical positions

After surgery, 15% of patients experience problems of excessive scarring, causing disfiguring and impaired function. An incision placed in the wrong direction causes unnecessary skin tension on the wound, pulling the wound edges apart. In order to close the wound, increased collagen disposition is needed. Currently, skin tension lines are used...

Design of a Biopsy Storage System for a Core Biopsy Device

A biopsy is a type of diagnostic medical test, which consists of extracting sample tissue for examination to determine the presence, cause, or extent of a disease. Most commonly, biopsies are used to investigate cancerous or inflammatory conditions. For context of this design study, breast biopsies were chosen as an area of interest. Rather than...

Parallel Approach to Derivative-Free Optimization: Implementing the DONE Algorithm on a GPU

Researchers at Delft University of Technology have recently developed an algorithm for optimizing noisy, expensive and possibly nonconvex objective functions for which no derivatives are available. The data-based online nonlinear extremum-seeker (DONE) was originally developed for sensorless wavefront aberration correction in optical coherence...

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...

Design of an intrauterine insemination device

This master thesis shows the development and design of an intrauterine insemination (IUI) device. The graduation project is done by order of the VU medical university in Amsterdam. IUI is a treatment for couples that have problems with their fertility and is conducted by IVF-doctors. Basically the procedure contains the following steps: • Drug...