Learning-based autonomous navigation, benchmark environments and simulation framework for endovascular interventions.

Endovascular interventions are a life-saving treatment for many diseases, but they suffer from drawbacks such as radiation exposure and the potential scarcity of proficient physicians. Robotic assistance during these interventions could be a promising support for these problems. Research focusing on autonomous endovascular interventions using artificial intelligence-based methodologies is gaining popularity.

Fabrication and testing of lensed fiber-optic probes for distance sensing using common-path low-coherence interferometry.

Common-path low-coherence interferometry enables high-resolution distance measurements to be made via thin fiber-optic probes. This is particularly advantageous for applications such as ophthalmic vitreoretinal microsurgery, where the probes can be used to precisely locate the position of surgical tools relative to the retinal surface, but could also have a wide range of other medical and industrial applications. The performance of the fiber probes depends critically on the fabrication of a focusing lens at the distal tip and on creating a medium-independent partial reflection that is used for common-path interferometry.

Estimation of angular insertion depth of a cochlear implant electrode array: 3D reconstruction versus spiral formulae.

Objective: The primary objective was to determine which of the following angular insertion depth (AID) estimation methods had the strongest correlation with the post-operative AID (AIDpost-op) of a lateral wall (LW) electrode: 1) Escudé formula based on the largest distance from the round window (RW) to the LW (distance A), 2) the elliptic-circular approximation (ECA) method based on both distance A and the perpendicular distance (distance B), 3) a 3D reconstruction method. The secondary objective was to evaluate the impact of using the actual electrode insertion length on the evaluation of the AID estimation methods.

Methods: The study included 45 cochleae implanted with the Advanced Bionics SlimJ electrode, with all 16 active electrode contacts being intracochlear.

FOVEA: Preoperative and intraoperative retinal fundus images with optic disc and retinal vessel annotations.

The performance and scope of computer vision methods applied to ophthalmic images is highly dependent on the availability of labelled training data. While there are a number of colour fundus photography datasets, FOVEA is to the best of our knowledge the first dataset that matches high-quality annotations in the intraoperative domain with those in the preoperative one. It comprises data from 40 patients collected at Moorfields Eye Hospital (London, UK) and includes preoperative and intraoperative retinal vessel and optic disc annotations performed by two independent clinical research fellows, as well as short video clips showing the retinal fundus though biomicroscopy imaging in the intraoperative setting.

Semi-Autonomous Laparoscopic Robot Docking With Learned Hand-Eye Information Fusion.

In this study, we introduce a novel shared-control system for key-hole docking operations, combining a commercial camera with occlusion-robust pose estimation and a hand-eye information fusion technique. This system is used to enhance docking precision and force-compliance safety. To train a hand-eye information fusion network model, we generated a self-supervised dataset using this docking system.

Erratum: Unpaired intra-operative OCT (iOCT) video super-resolution with contrastive learning: erratum.

[This corrects the article on p. 772 in vol. 15, PMID: 38404298.

Predicting 1, 2 and 3 year emergent referable diabetic retinopathy and maculopathy using deep learning.

Background: Predicting diabetic retinopathy (DR) progression could enable individualised screening with prompt referral for high-risk individuals for sight-saving treatment, whilst reducing screening burden for low-risk individuals. We developed and validated deep learning systems (DLS) that predict 1, 2 and 3 year emergent referable DR and maculopathy using risk factor characteristics (tabular DLS), colour fundal photographs (image DLS) or both (multimodal DLS).

Methods: From 162,339 development-set eyes from south-east London (UK) diabetic eye screening programme (DESP), 110,837 had eligible longitudinal data, with the remaining 51,502 used for pretraining.

Unpaired intra-operative OCT (iOCT) video super-resolution with contrastive learning.

Regenerative therapies show promise in reversing sight loss caused by degenerative eye diseases. Their precise subretinal delivery can be facilitated by robotic systems alongside with Intra-operative Optical Coherence Tomography (iOCT). However, iOCT's real-time retinal layer information is compromised by inferior image quality.

The impact of the size and angle of the cochlear basal turn on translocation of a pre-curved mid-scala cochlear implant electrode.

Scalar translocation is a severe form of intra-cochlear trauma during cochlear implant (CI) electrode insertion. This study explored the hypothesis that the dimensions of the cochlear basal turn and orientation of its inferior segment relative to surgically relevant anatomical structures influence the scalar translocation rates of a pre-curved CI electrode. In a cohort of 40 patients implanted with the Advanced Bionics Mid-Scala electrode array, the scalar translocation group (40%) had a significantly smaller mean distance A of the cochlear basal turn (p < 0.

Reduced order modeling and model order reduction for continuum manipulators: an overview.

Soft robot's natural dynamics calls for the development of tailored modeling techniques for control. However, the high-dimensional configuration space of the geometrically exact modeling approaches for soft robots, i.e.

Comparative verification of control methodology for robotic interventional neuroradiology procedures.

Purpose: The use of robotics is emerging for performing interventional radiology procedures. Robots in interventional radiology are typically controlled using button presses and joystick movements. This study identified how different human-robot interfaces affect endovascular surgical performance using interventional radiology simulations.

Effect of socioeconomic deprivation as determined by the English deprivation deciles on the progression of diabetic retinopathy and maculopathy: a multivariate case-control analysis of 88 910 patients attending a South-East London diabetic eye screening service.

Purpose: To determine associations between deprivation using the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD and individual IMD subdomains) with incident referable diabetic retinopathy/maculopathy (termed rDR).

Methods: Anonymised demographic and screening data collected by the South-East London Diabetic Eye Screening Programme were extracted from September 2013 to December 2019. Multivariable Cox proportional models were used to explore the association between the IMD, IMD subdomains and rDR.

Towards A Physics-based Model for Steerable Eversion Growing Robots.

Soft robots that grow through eversion/apical extension can effectively navigate fragile environments such as ducts and vessels inside the human body. This paper presents the physics-based model of a miniature steerable eversion growing robot. We demonstrate the robot's growing, steering, stiffening and interaction capabilities.

Using deep learning to detect diabetic retinopathy on handheld non-mydriatic retinal images acquired by field workers in community settings.

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) at risk of vision loss (referable DR) needs to be identified by retinal screening and referred to an ophthalmologist. Existing automated algorithms have mostly been developed from images acquired with high cost mydriatic retinal cameras and cannot be applied in the settings used in most low- and middle-income countries. In this prospective multicentre study, we developed a deep learning system (DLS) that detects referable DR from retinal images acquired using handheld non-mydriatic fundus camera by non-technical field workers in 20 sites across India.

Automated image curation in diabetic retinopathy screening using deep learning.

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) screening images are heterogeneous and contain undesirable non-retinal, incorrect field and ungradable samples which require curation, a laborious task to perform manually. We developed and validated single and multi-output laterality, retinal presence, retinal field and gradability classification deep learning (DL) models for automated curation. The internal dataset comprised of 7743 images from DR screening (UK) with 1479 external test images (Portugal and Paraguay).

Surgical biomicroscopy-guided intra-operative optical coherence tomography (iOCT) image super-resolution.

Purpose: Intra-retinal delivery of novel sight-restoring therapies will require the precision of robotic systems accompanied by excellent visualisation of retinal layers. Intra-operative Optical Coherence Tomography (iOCT) provides cross-sectional retinal images in real time but at the cost of image quality that is insufficient for intra-retinal therapy delivery.This paper proposes a super-resolution methodology that improves iOCT image quality leveraging spatiotemporal consistency of incoming iOCT video streams.

Deep homography estimation in dynamic surgical scenes for laparoscopic camera motion extraction.

Current laparoscopic camera motion automation relies on rule-based approaches or only focuses on surgical tools. Imitation Learning (IL) methods could alleviate these shortcomings, but have so far been applied to oversimplified setups. Instead of extracting actions from oversimplified setups, in this work we introduce a method that allows to extract a laparoscope holder's actions from videos of laparoscopic interventions.

OxVent: Design and evaluation of a rapidly-manufactured Covid-19 ventilator.

Background: The manufacturing of any standard mechanical ventilator cannot rapidly be upscaled to several thousand units per week, largely due to supply chain limitations. The aim of this study was to design, verify and perform a pre-clinical evaluation of a mechanical ventilator based on components not required for standard ventilators, and that met the specifications provided by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for rapidly-manufactured ventilator systems (RMVS).

Methods: The design utilises closed-loop negative feedback control, with real-time monitoring and alarms.

Evaluating a Deep Learning Diabetic Retinopathy Grading System Developed on Mydriatic Retinal Images When Applied to Non-Mydriatic Community Screening.

Artificial Intelligence has showcased clear capabilities to automatically grade diabetic retinopathy (DR) on mydriatic retinal images captured by clinical experts on fixed table-top retinal cameras within hospital settings. However, in many low- and middle-income countries, screening for DR revolves around minimally trained field workers using handheld non-mydriatic cameras in community settings. This prospective study evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of a deep learning algorithm developed using mydriatic retinal images by the Singapore Eye Research Institute, commercially available as Zeiss VISUHEALTH-AI DR, on images captured by field workers on a Zeiss Visuscout 100 non-mydriatic handheld camera from people with diabetes in a house-to-house cross-sectional study across 20 regions in India.

Intra-operative OCT (iOCT) Super Resolution: a Two-Stage Methodology Leveraging High Quality Pre-operative OCT Scans.

Regenerative therapies have recently shown potential in restoring sight lost due to degenerative diseases. Their efficacy requires precise intra-retinal delivery, which can be achieved by robotic systems accompanied by high quality visualization of retinal layers. Intra-operative Optical Coherence Tomography (iOCT) captures cross-sectional retinal images in real-time but with image quality that is inadequate for intra-retinal therapy delivery.

: A Sticky Suction Cup Gripper Equipped Needle for Targeted Therapeutics Delivery.

This paper presents a multi-purpose gripping and incision tool-set to reduce the number of required manipulators for targeted therapeutics delivery in Minimally Invasive Surgery. We have recently proposed the use of multi-arm Concentric Tube Robots (CTR) consisting of an incision, a camera, and a gripper manipulator for deep orbital interventions, with a focus on Optic Nerve Sheath Fenestration (ONSF). The proposed prototype in this research, called , is a needle equipped with a sticky suction cup gripper capable of performing both gripping of target tissue and incision tasks in the optic nerve area by exploiting the multi-tube arrangement of a CTR for actuation of the different tool-set units.