Ureteroscopic skills with and without Roboflex Avicenna in the K-box® simulator

Robotic Retrograde Intrarenal Surgery: A Journey from "Back to the Future"

The introduction of robotics has revolutionized surgery. Robotic platforms have also recently been introduced in clinical practice specifically for flexible ureteroscopy. In this paper, we look at the robotic platforms currently available for flexible ureteroscopy, describing their advantages and limitations. The following robotic platforms are discussed: Roboflex Avicenna^®, EasyUretero^®, and ILY^® robot. Finally, potential future advancements in this field are presented.

Design and Performance Investigation of a Robot-Assisted Flexible Ureteroscopy System

Flexible ureteroscopy (FURS) has been developed and has become a preferred routine procedure for both diagnosis and treatment of kidney stones and other renal diseases inside the urinary tract. The traditional manual FURS procedure is highly skill-demanding and easily brings about physical fatigue and burnout for surgeons. The improper operational ergonomics and fragile instruments also hinder its further development and patient safety enhancement. A robotic system is presented in this paper to assist the FURS procedure. The system with a master-slave configuration is designed based on the requirement analysis in manual operation. A joint-to-joint mapping strategy and several control strategies are built to realize intuitive and safe operations. Both phantom and animal experiments validate that the robot has significant advantages over manual operations, including the easy-to-use manner, reduced intraoperative time, and improved surgical ergonomics. The proposed robotic system can solve the major drawbacks of manual FURS. The test results demonstrate that the robot has great potential for clinical applications.

Operator-assisted vs self-achieved basketing during ureteroscopy: results from an in vitro preference study

OBJECTIVES

A recently introduced device (LithoVue Empower™ or LE, Boston Scientifics, USA) allows the surgeon to directly control the stone-retrieving basket without the need of an assistant during flexible ureteroscopy. We aimed to evaluate the stone-retrieval performance of this device.

METHODS

We used a bench-training model for flexible ureteroscopy, the Key-box (K-Box®, Porgès-Coloplast, France), to compare the LE configured with a 1.9F stone-retrieval tipless basket (ZeroTip™, Boston Scientific, USA) and a traditional assistant-maneuvered 1.9F stone-retrieval tipless basket. Seven experienced endo-urologists and seven residents-in-training retrieved a fake stone from three different renal cavities of the K-Box with increasing access complexity first with the traditional basket and then with the LE device. We recorded retrieval time and all the operators filled in the NASA Task Load Index (TLI) for the self-evaluation of their performance. We then compared the use of LE in terms of retrieval time, failure rates, and NASA-TLI scores.

RESULTS

Stone retrieval times and failure rates were similar according to the retrieval technique, although residents had non-statistically significant shorter times with the LE. NASA-TLI scores revealed lower frustration (p = 0.03) when LE was used by experienced urologists as compared to the traditional basketing. When stratifying the analyses according to surgical experience, fully trained urologists performed faster stone retrieval and showed lower effort scores than residents-in-training (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

The individually controlled retrieval system is an effective device assisting stone retrieval and does not necessitate specific training among experienced endo-urologists. Young residents might benefit from LE during their learning curve.

Simulator Availability Index: a novel easy indicator to track training trends. Is Europe currently at a urological training recession risk?

Introduction

To evaluate the European trend regarding the availability of surgical simulators and to propose a novel index to easily track this trend.

Material and methods

During European Urology Residents Education Program, from 2014 to 2018, residents were asked through an anonymous survey about the availability of specific simulator training boxes at their department. The Simulator Availability Index (SAI) was made by the ratio between the number of departments with at least one box trainer and the total number of departments evaluated.

Results

The SAI decreased in five years from 0.47 to 0.41 for laparoscopic trainers, while the already low initial SAI (0.17) decreased by up to 0.05 in four years for both ureteroscopy (URS) and transurethral resection (TUR) trainers.

Conclusions

A self-analysis may be advisable in order to improve the spread of information and investigate whether any specific reasons may be responsible for this trend. The SAI might be a simple but useful tool to monitor and evaluate this trend in the context of national training plans.

Characteristics of current digital single-use flexible ureteroscopes versus their reusable counterparts: an in-vitro comparative analysis

Background

Single-use flexible ureterorenoscopes (fURSs) have been recently introduced aiming to offer solutions to the sterilization, fragility and cost issues of the reusable fURSs. In order to be a viable alternative, the single-use scopes must prove similar capabilities when compared to their reusable counterparts. The goal of our in-vitro study was to compare the current reusable and single-use digital fURSs regarding their deflection, irrigation and vision characteristics.

Methods

We compared in-vitro 4 single-use fURSs-LithoVue™ (Boston Scientific, Marlborough, Massachusetts, USA), Uscope™ (Zhuhai Pusen Medical Technology Co. Ltd., Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, China), NeoFlex™ (NeoScope Inc, San Jose, California, USA) and ShaoGang™ (YouCare Technology Co. Ltd., Wuhan, China) versus 4 reusable fURSs-FLEX-X^c (Karl Storz SE & Co KG, Tuttlingen, Germany), URF-V2 (Olympus, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan), COBRA vision and BOA vision (Richard Wolf GmbH, Knittlingen, Germany). Deflection and irrigation abilities were evaluated with different instruments inserted through the working channel: laser fibres (200/273/365 µm), retrieval baskets (1.5/1.9/2.2 Fr), guide wires [polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) 0.038 inch, nitinol 0.035 inch] and a biopsy forceps. A scoring system was designed to compare the deflection impairment. Saline at different heights (40/80 cm) was used for irrigation. The flow was measured with the tip of the fURS initially straight and then fully deflected. The vision characteristics were evaluated (field of view, depth of field, image resolution, distortion and colour representation) using specific target models.

Results

Overall, the single-use fURSs had superior in-vitro deflection abilities than the reusable fURSs, in most settings. The highest score was achieved by NeoFlex™ and the lowest by ShaoGang™. PTFE guide wire had most impact on deflection for all fURSs. The 200 µm laser fibre had the lowest impact on deflection for the single-use fURSs. The 1.5 Fr basket caused the least deflection impairment on reusable fURSs. At the end of the tests, deflection loss was noted in most of the single-use fURSs, while none of the reusable fURSs presented deflection impairment. ShaoGang™ had the highest irrigation flow. Increasing the size of the instruments occupying the working channel led to decrease of irrigation flow in all fURSs. The impact of maximal deflection on irrigation flow was very low for all fURSs. When instruments were occupying the working channel, the single-use fURSs had slightly better in-vitro irrigation flow than the reusable fURSs. The field of view was comparable for all fURSs, with LithoVue™ showing a slight advantage. Depth of field and colour reproducibility were almost similar for all fURSs. ShaoGang™ and Uscope™ had the lowest resolution. FLEX X^c had the highest image distortion while LithoVue™ had the lowest. Partial field of view impairment was not for Uscope™ and ShaoGang™.

Conclusions

In-vitro, there are differences in technical characteristics of fURSs. It appears that single-use fURSs deflect better than their reusable counterparts. Irrespective of deflection, the irrigation flow of the single-use fURSs was slightly superior to the flow of the reusable fURSs. Overall, reusable fURSs had better vision characteristics than single-use fURSs. Further in-vivo studies might be necessary to confirm these findings.

Robot-assisted flexible ureteroscopy: an update

The role of flexible ureteroscopy (FURS) in the management of nephrolithiasis has increased due to the improved armamentarium. However, FURS still represents a challenging technique limiting its diffusion. Similar to previous experiences in laparoscopy, recently developed robotic devices may significantly compensate for the ergonomic deficiencies of FURS. Based on a short description of the history of robotic devices for laparoscopy, this article summarizes all current developments of robotic FURS. In 2008, robotic FURS was first reported using the Sensei-Magellan system designed for interventional cardiology. However, with this device the ureteroscope was only passively manipulated, which represented the main reason why this project has been discontinued after 18 clinical cases. Avicenna Roboflex™ was especially developed for FURS. It consists of a surgeon's console and manipulator of a flexible ureterorenoscope. The console provides an adjustable seat with armrests and two manipulators of the endoscope: the right wheel enables deflection and the left horizontal joystick allows rotation as well as advancing and retracting the instrument. The speed of rotation and advancement can be regulated at the screen of the console. Using the IDEAL system for evaluation of new robotic devices, safety and efficacy of the system could be demonstrated in two multi-centric studies providing significant improved ergonomics for the surgeon (IDEAL stage 1 and 2). Future studies are necessary to determine the final role of robotic FURS.