Advantages
Though engineering MRI robots can be challenging, MRI robots have many advantages. One large advantage of using MRI as the imaging modality is the patient isn't exposed to radiation as they would be from computed tomography (CT scan) and x-ray imaging. MRI also has better image quality than other imaging modalities and is better able to distinguish between cancerous and health cells then ultrasound imaging.
MRI compatible robots could greatly change IGI. Currently, most IGIs are a multi-step process. Initially the patient must be imaged in order to decide the best location to begin the procedure. After this scan, the patient is moved to make any necessary incisions and prepare for their operation. The patient is then scanned again to ensure proper alignment of the instruments. If the instruments aren't properly aligned, the instrument must be moved, followed by another scan. This process of moving and scanning continues until the correct location and alignment of instruments is obtained. During each scan, the images must be registered again.
While using an MRI robot, the instrument could be implemented under continual imaging. As a result, real-time changes in instrument path could be made. Making real-time changes in path would be helpful in correcting needle bending. Needle bending can occur from patient movement and breathing and even from the needle moving through tissue. By not moving the patient, potential sources of needle bending and need for image registration would be minimized.
Read more about this topic: MRI Robot
Famous quotes containing the word advantages:
“Can you conceive what it is to native-born American women citizens, accustomed to the advantages of our schools, our churches and the mingling of our social life, to ask over and over again for so simple a thing as that “we, the people,” should mean women as well as men; that our Constitution should mean exactly what it says?”
—Mary F. Eastman, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4 ch. 5, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“We work harder than ever, and I cannot see the advantages in cooperative living.”
—Lydia Arnold, U.S. commune supervisor (of the North American Phalanx, Red Bank, New Jersey, 1843- 1855)
“Men hear gladly of the power of blood or race. Every body likes to know that his advantages cannot be attributed to air, soil, sea, or to local wealth, as mines and quarries, nor to laws and traditions, nor to fortune, but to superior brain, as it makes the praise more personal to him.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)