A miniaturized ultrasonic micro-hole perforator for minimally invasive craniotomy

Liao, Shufu, Li, Xuan, Deng, Maosen, Liu, Bin, Wang, Yatong and Nee Saw, Shier (2023) A miniaturized ultrasonic micro-hole perforator for minimally invasive craniotomy. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 70 (7), 2069-2079. (doi:10.1109/TBME.2023.3234965).

Abstract

Objective: micro-hole perforation on skull is urgently desired for minimally invasive insertion of micro-tools in brain for diagnostic or treatment purpose. However, a micro drill bit would easily fracture, making it difficult to safely generate a micro-hole on the hard skull.

Methods: in this study, we present a method for ultrasonic vibration assisted micro-hole perforation on skull in a manner similar to subcutaneous injection on soft tissue. For this purpose, a high amplitude miniaturized ultrasonic tool with a 500 μm tip diameter micro-hole perforator was developed with simulation and experimental characterization. In-depth investigation of micro-hole generation mechanism was performed with systematic experiments on animal skull with a bespoke test rig; effects of vibration amplitude and feed rate on hole forming characteristics were systematically studied. It was observed that by exploiting skull bone's unique structural and material properties, the ultrasonic micro-perforator could locally damage bone tissue with micro-porosities, induce sufficient plastic deformation to bone tissue around the micro-hole and refrain elastic recovery after tool withdraw, generating a micro-hole on skull without material.

Results : under optimized conditions, high quality micro-holes could be formed on the hard skull with a force (<1 N) even smaller than that for subcutaneous injection on soft skin.

Conclusion: this study would provide a safe and effective method and a miniaturized device for micro-hole perforation on skull for minimally invasive neural interventions.

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Contributors

Author: Xuan Li

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