OCT image-guidance of needle injection for robotized flexible interventional endoscopy

Endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) is a minimally invasive treatment for early stage colorectal cancer that can be performed in teleoperation with a robotized flexible interventional endoscope. However, the tissue elevation step which requires submucosal needle insertion still requires manual operation. In this work we present robotic needle placement using image-guidance that combines white-light camera images to control the alignment of the needle and the OCT catheter. OCT images are used to determine the position of the needle tip during its insertion. This procedure is experimentally tested in an optical phantom that simulates the tissue layers of the colon.