A Curved Port Delivery System for Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy of Brain Tumors

Laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT) is a neurosurgical procedure that involves using heat treatment to ablate glioblastomas in the brain. Current methods for placing probes in LITT involve straight trajectory pathways. This limitation often requires surgeons to make multiple trajectories or leave undesired margins. There has been extensive work in steerable needles, concentric tube cannulas, and flexible surgical tools. In this work, we present an approach which focuses on providing steerability to tools that aren’t inherently steerable. To do this, we developed a curved port delivery system that leverages an active cannula for the deployment of a plastic, flexible port that delivers existing surgical tools. We present an initial prototype coupled with feasibility results illustrating that the port can be placed to steer probes to a desired location.