The emergence of steerable flexible instruments has widened the uptake of minimally invasive surgical techniques. In sinus surgery, such flexible instruments could enable the access to difficult-to-reach anatomical areas. However, design-oriented metrics, essential for the development of steerable flexible instruments for maxillary sinus surgery, are still lacking. This paper proposes a method to process measurements and provides the instrument designer with essential information to develop adapted flexible instruments for limited access surgery. This method was applied to maxillary sinus surgery and showed that an instrument with a diameter smaller than 2.4 mm can be used on more than 72.5% of the subjects’ set. Based on the statistical analysis and provided that this flexible instrument can bend up to \(164.4^\circ,\) it is estimated that all areas within the maxillary sinus could be reached through a regular antrostomy without resorting to extra incision or tissue removal in 94.9% of the population set. The presented method was partially validated by conducting cadaver experiments.

可操纵的柔性器械的出现扩大了微创手术技术的应用。在鼻窦手术中，这种灵活的器械可以进入难以到达的解剖区域。然而，仍然缺乏以设计为导向的指标，对于开发用于上颌窦手术的可转向柔性器械至关重要。本文提出了一种处理测量值的方法，并为器械设计人员提供了必要的信息，以开发适用于受限通路手术的灵活器械。该方法应用于上颌窦手术，表明直径小于2.4mm的器械可用于72.5%以上的受试者。基于统计分析并假设这种灵活的仪器可以弯曲到\(164.4^\circ,\)据估计，在 94.9% 的人群中，上颌窦内的所有区域都可以通过常规的窦造口术到达，而无需采取额外的切口或组织切除。通过进行尸体实验部分验证了所提出的方法。