Minimally invasive surgical instrument advancement

Abstract

A guide probe is telemanipulatively advanced past an intermediate tissue structure. The guide probe is locked in position and a guide tube is advanced over the guide probe. The guide tube is then locked in position, the guide probe is withdrawn, and a surgical instrument is inserted through the guide tube. In aspects of the invention, the guide tube and the surgical instrument are telemanipulatively controlled.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims the priority benefit of the following United States Provisional patent applications, all of which are incorporated by reference: [0002] U.S. Patent Application No. 60 / 813,028 entitled “Single port system 2” filed 13 Jun. 2006 by Cooper et al.; [0003] U.S. Patent Application No. 60 / 813,029 entitled “Single port surgical system 1” filed 13 Jun. 2006 by Cooper; [0004] U.S. Patent Application No. 60 / 813,030 entitled “Independently actuated optical train” filed 13 Jun. 2006 by Larkin et al.; [0005] U.S. Patent Application No. 60 / 813,075 entitled “Modular cannula architecture” filed 13 Jun. 2006 by Larkin et al.; [0006] U.S. Patent Application No. 60 / 813,125 entitled “Methods for delivering instruments to a surgical site with minimal disturbance to intermediate structures” filed 13 Jun. 2006 by Larkin et al.; [0007] U.S. Patent Application No. 60 / 813,126 entitled “Rigid single port surgical system” filed 13 Jun. 2006 b...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The invention is about a way to guide a surgical instrument through tissue using a guide probe and a guide tube. The guide probe is first advanced through the tissue and then locked in place. A guide tube is then advanced over the guide probe and locked in place. The guide probe is then withdrawn, and a surgical instrument is inserted through the guide tube. The guide tube and the surgical instrument can both be controlled remotely, making the procedure safer and more precise.

Problems solved by technology

Although teleoperative surgery using the da Vinci® Surgical System provides great benefits over, for instance, many hand-held procedures, for some patients and for some anatomical areas the da Vinci® Surgical System is unable to effectively access a surgical site.

In particular, “defective” manipulators have fewer than six independently controlled joints and therefore do not have the capability of fully controlling end effector position and orientation.

Instead, defective manipulators are limited to controlling only a subset of the position and orientation variables.

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