Real-time Haptic Guidance System for Retinal Surgery Based on Intraoperative Optical Coherence Tomography

Ophthalmic surgical procedures are hand-performed procedures in which the surgeons operate tools at close contact with the patient eye’s delicate tissues. The range of movement is generally in the order of hundreds of micrometers, and no tactile information is provided. In most cases the outcomes of these procedures are strictly correlated to factors which are difficult to objectively evaluate. Visual feedback is the only relevant information supporting the surgeon's experience, which therefore plays a fundamental role in keeping all those variables under control. This work proposes an image-based guidance provided by means of haptic feedback to the surgeon. As it produces the desired force effect, the haptic device can track the operating tools. This information can be integrated with the information extracted in real-time from the scans of the retina to create a controlled environment for surgery, with a significant perception enhancement.