Coloscopy simulation: towards endoscopes improvement

Abstract

Minimally invasive surgery progresses have allowed to greatly decrease patient suffering. A way to improve these techniques is to use active tools, which could adapt to the inspected environment. The development of these tools is very complex. So simulation methods can be significantly helpful in order to produce the most suitable tools while limiting the quantity of physical prototypes. We work on the design of a simulator for virtual coloscopy. Besides the virtual prototyping aspect for new active endoscopic devices, we can also use it as a training simulator once the device is designed. To do so, we have to address the simulation process of the colon. This article is mainly devoted to the description of the chosen models for the colon behaviour, which are used for the simulator. Some experimental results are presented which confirm the validity of the different choices. To finish, sigmoid untwisting operation is presented as a benchmark test to prove the efficiency of the simulator.

Physical Simulator for Colonoscopy: A Modular Design Approach and Validation

“…Since its first introduction in 1969, colonoscopy has demonstrated to be a life-saving screening procedure for early cancer detection [1], [2]. However, difficulties and potential drawbacks of colonoscopy are: i) perforation and postprocedural bleeding (low incidence rates but unaltered in the last 15 years [3]); ii) sedation-associated complications (i.e., up to 13% increased risk of complications for patients undergoing anesthesia, including a higher risk of perforation [4]); and iii) patient's discomfort with abdominal pain (i.e., 22.5% and 14.2% of unseated patients reported pain, respectively, during and after colonoscopy on a study involving more than 20,000 patients [5]).…”

Viszeralmedizin 2025 - Veränderungen durch die Informationswissenschaften

“…Die rasante Weiterentwicklung der Bildgebung sowie der medizinischen Bildverarbeitung und -analyse wird insbesondere die Diagnostik und Früherkennung in der Viszeralmedizin sowie die Einsatzgebiete von NOTES positiv beeinflussen. Ein Beispiel ist Darmkrebsvorsorge durch virtuelle Koloskopie [2]. Die Computergrafik verfügt über immersive Visualisierungsalgorithmen für hochaufgelöste Volumendatensätze, die einen virtuellen Flug durch den Darm ermöglichen.…”

Automatic hands-free visualization of a six degrees of freedom agent within a complex anatomical space

“…Regarding virtual simulators at research stage, the development efforts mainly focus on improving the realism of the systems and creating low-cost portable platforms. Trade-offs need to be found between realistic force feedback, organ and endoscope deformation, visual rendering, and computational cost [106][107][108][109][110][111]. A promising example of this kind of simulators is the one developed by the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) for colonoscopy.…”

“…Equivalent Von Mises stress-strain curves were acquired from the central 3D element of each bone-shaped silicone sample and plotted against deformation. As first approximation, silicone selection was driven by Young modulus metric to comply, qualitatively, with the tensile response of human colon samples when loaded quasi-statically in the circumferential direction, i.e., 0.63±1.25 MPa [106], assuming that stronger interactions between the colonoscope and colon walls occur mainly along this trajectory. The approximated elastic modulus of each silicone was computed by linearizing the stress-strain curves reported above.…”