Vibrations Add Touch to Surgical Instruments

Aug-14-16 An innovative and affordable new vibrating system lends a sense of touch to almost any minimally invasive surgical tool.

Created by a team from Hiroshima University, the new technology can be used in just about any existing minimally invasive surgical tool to provide a sense of touch from the handle to the tip. The core of the technology is based on a piezoelectric unit that attaches to the handle of the surgical instrument to vibrate at a constant frequency that is not felt by the person using the instrument until the tip comes in contact with tissue.

In tests with volunteers, the individuals were able to detect different types of sandpaper (which could translate into healthy tissue vs. cancerous tissue in the body), and the same vibration frequency operated equally well for all the volunteers.

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[MEDGADGET.COM]
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