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The Feasibility of Using a Smartphone Magnetometer for Assisting Needle Placement

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Abstract

Minimally invasive surgical procedures often require needle insertion. For these procedures, efficacy greatly depends on precise needle placement. Many methods, such as optical tracking and electromagnetic tracking, have been applied to assist needle placement by tracking the real-time position information of the needle. Compared with the optical tracking method, electromagnetic tracking is more suitable for minimally invasive surgery since it has no requirement of line-of-sight. However, the devices needed for electromagnetic tracking are usually expensive, which will increase the cost of surgery. In this study, we presented a low-cost smartphone-based permanent magnet tracking method compatible with CT imaging and designed a 3D printed operation platform to assist with needle placement prior to needle insertion during minimally invasive surgery. The needle positioning accuracy of this method was tested in an open air test and a prostate phantom test in a CT environment. For these two tests, the average radial errors were 0.47 and 2.25 mm, respectively, and the standard deviations were 0.29 and 1.63, respectively. The materials and fabrication required for the presented method are inexpensive. Thus, many image-guided therapies may benefit from the presented method as a low-cost option for needle positioning prior to needle insertion.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Bench-to-Bedside Award, the NIH Center for Interventional Oncology Grant, the National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps Team Grant (1617340), NSF REU site program 1359095, the UGA-AU Inter-Institutional Seed Funding, the American Society for Quality Dr. Richard J. Schlesinger Grant, the PHS Grant UL1TR000454 from the Clinical and Translational Science Award Program, and the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, the NIH Center for Interventional Oncology: Grant ZID# BC011242 & CL040015 and supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Zhuo Zhao & Zion Tsz Ho Tse

  2. Center for Interventional Oncology, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Sheng Xu & Bradford J. Wood

  3. Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Hongliang Ren

  4. College of Engineering, The University of Georgia, 597 D. W. Brooks Dr, Athens, GA, 30602, USA

    Zion Tsz Ho Tse

Authors
  1. Zhuo Zhao
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  2. Sheng Xu
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  3. Bradford J. Wood
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  4. Hongliang Ren
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  5. Zion Tsz Ho Tse
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Correspondence to Zion Tsz Ho Tse.

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Associate Editor Sean S. Kohles oversaw the review of this article.

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Zhao, Z., Xu, S., Wood, B.J. et al. The Feasibility of Using a Smartphone Magnetometer for Assisting Needle Placement. Ann Biomed Eng 48, 1147–1156 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-019-02436-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-019-02436-5

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