Interactive Simulation of Surgical Needle Insertion Into Soft Tissue

Needle insertion is widely used in many clinical procedures such as biopsy, brachytherapy, and anesthesia. The success of these procedures highly depends on accurate guidance of the needle tip to a target area. Tissue deformation and needle deflection are the major factors that affect the accuracy and precision of needle insertion. In this paper, a new finite element model approach that couples both the tissue deformation and needle deflection is proposed based on the stick-slip theory. A method that adapts both the tissue mesh and needle mesh is developed. The interactive model of the needle and soft tissue is established and performed in MATLAB. The amounts of needle deflection and tissue deformation for both homogeneous and inhomogeneous tissue materials are obtained from the simulations. The model can easily be extended to 3 dimensional cases, and integrated into the real-time medical training simulation systems.