Exploring non-assembly 3D printing for novel compliant surgical devices

Costanza Culmone; Paul W J Henselmans; Remi I B van Starkenburg; Paul Breedveld

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0232952

Exploring non-assembly 3D printing for novel compliant surgical devices

PLoS One. 2020 May 14;15(5):e0232952. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0232952. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Costanza Culmone¹, Paul W J Henselmans¹, Remi I B van Starkenburg², Paul Breedveld¹

Affiliations

¹ Department BioMechanical Engineering, Bio-Inspired Technology Group (BITE), Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime, and Materials Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands.
² Department of Electronic and Mechanical Support Division, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands.

Abstract

In minimally invasive surgery, maneuverability is usually limited and a large number of degrees of freedom (DOF) is highly demanded. However, increasing the DOF usually means increasing the complexity of the surgical instrument leading to long fabrication and assembly times. In this work, we propose the first fully 3D printed handheld, multi-steerable device. The proposed device is mechanically actuated, and possesses five serially controlled segments. We designed a new compliant segment providing high torsion and axial stiffness as well as a low bending stiffness by merging the functions of four helicoids and a continuum backbone. Compliant segments were combined to form the compliant shaft of the new device. In order to control this compliant shaft, a control handle was designed that mimics the shaft structure. A prototype called the HelicoFlex was built using only three 3D printed parts. HelicoFlex, with its 10 degrees of freedom, showed a fluid motion in performing single and multi-curved paths. The multi-steerable instrument was 3D printed without any support material in the compliant shaft itself. This work contributes to enlarge the body of knowledge regarding how additive manufacturing could be used in the production of multi-steerable surgical instruments for personalized medicine.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Biomedical Technology / instrumentation*
Elasticity
Equipment Design
Humans
Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures / instrumentation*
Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures / methods
Printing, Three-Dimensional / instrumentation*
Surgical Instruments

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, NWO), domain Applied and Engineering Sciences (TTW), and which is partly funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Grant number 12137, Bio-Inspired Maneuverable Dendritic Devices for Minimally Invasive Surgery, awarded to PB. URL: https://www.nwo.nl/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, or preparation of the manuscript. There was no additional external funding received for this study.