Influence of Vibration on Bioinspired Surgical Needles for Soft Tissue Biopsy

Abstract

Design stagnation of traditional surgical needles results in high insertion force and needle tip deflection from the injection path. Higher forces and deflection can increase tissue damage, decrease biopsy sample integrity, and increase patient recovery time. This damage is magnified in softer body tissues, such as, brain white matter or breast adipose tissue. Additionally, the traditional tissue phantoms used to simulate human tissue during needle design, often fail to model tissue damage caused by needle injection. Insect stingers hold promise for modernizing needle designs as they have evolved for millions of years, particularly the barbed stinger of a honeybee and the vibratory injection of a mosquito proboscis. Through the analysis of existing surgical needles and various insect stingers, mechanical and dynamic injection features were implemented in a novel needle design to decrease insertion forces and minimize needle tip deflection. Furthermore, this project addressed the gaps in existing tissue phantom simulations of tissue damage through a novel scaled-up tissue phantom histological method.