Prostate cancer is a serious disease. Timely diagnosis, monitoring and treatment are essential for a good prognosis.
MRI-guided prostate biopsy can be used to confirm (or exclude) prostate cancer. A manually operated device (see photo) is generally used to precisely align the needle guide with the region of interest.
There is a desire to align the needle guide automatically, using MR-safe actuators. This would increase the biopsy accuracy and possibly speed up the procedure, as fewer manual steps would be needed.
A wide range of MR-safe pneumatic stepper motors has been developed at RaM. The central topic of this MSc thesis is therefore: to design, build and evaluate an MR-safe robotic device for prostate biopsy.