A Semi‐automatic Puncture System for Liver Rupture Haemostasis: Ex Vivo and In Vivo Study

BACKGROUND: Liver rupture caused by blunt trauma can result in severe haemorrhage and death. Percutaneous puncture embolisation is a potential minimally invasive approach for haemostasis, but manual puncture is limited by difficult bleeding-site localization and hand-eye coordination. METHODS: We developed a semi-automatic puncture system integrating a robotic arm and a compact rack-pinion driven end-effector. Positioning and posture accuracy were evaluated, followed by ex vivo and in vivo porcine liver embolisation experiments. RESULTS: The system can achieve mean positioning and posture accuracies of 0.36 mm and 1.03° under load-free conditions, and 1.83 mm and 2.67° in the soft-tissue phantom, respectively. Embolic material was delivered to the target region, and cessation of visible bleeding was observed within approximately 20 s in the ex vivo and in vivo experiments. CONCLUSIONS: The results support the preliminary feasibility of this approach for percutaneous puncture embolisation of complex hepatic lacerations.