Tentacle-shaped robot could transform lung cancer treatment

A tiny robot that can travel deep into the lungs could transform cancer treatment, allowing doctors to reach and destroy previously inaccessible tumours, scientists say.

University of Leeds’ tiny robot, which resembles a tentacle, is small enough to explore the lungs. Picture: University of Leeds

A tiny robot that can travel deep into the lungs could transform cancer treatment, allowing doctors to reach and destroy previously inaccessible tumours, scientists say.

The thinness and softness of the robot, which resembles a tentacle, and the ability to manoeuvre it with great precision using magnets outside the body means the device can reach deeper than more invasive procedures.

Made of silicone, the robot is softer than body tissue, meaning it causes little damage when it comes into contact with even very small bronchial tubes deep inside the lungs. Powerful magnets outside the body are used to help the device bend around tight corners without having to make excessive contact with the walls of the tubes.

It can then take a biopsy sample of a tumour or beam a laser to destroy it.

The tentacle-shaped robot itself is only 2.4mm in diameter, more than twice as thin as standard bronchoscope tubes, which measure about 6mm. Even the most advanced forms of robotic tubes currently in use measure between 3.5mm and 4.2mm.

The magnetic robot protrudes from the end of a bronchoscope that is pushed in through the mouth, down the throat and into the first parts of the bronchial tree within the lungs, where the tubes are wider.

Researchers from the University of Leeds have been testing the device on the lungs of human ­cadavers and found that the device can reach 37 per cent deeper into the lungs than standard equipment, while causing less tissue damage, according to a study published in the journal Nature Engineering Communications.

Pietro Valdastri, director of the university’s Storm (Science and Technologies of Robotics in Medicine) lab, who supervised the research, called it “a really exciting development”.

“This new approach has the advantage of being specific to the anatomy, softer than the anatomy and fully shape-controllable via magnetics,” he said.

Pietro Valdastri, director of the University of Leeds’ Storm (Science and Technologies of Robotics in Medicine) lab. Picture: University of Leeds

“These three main features have the potential to revolutionise navigation inside the body.”

Lung cancer is often treated with surgery but this can lead to healthy tissue being damaged or removed along with the tumour.

Scientists have long sought a method of targeting lung cancer that leaves the healthy tissue around a tumour untouched and does not require opening up or puncturing a patient’s chest.

The study concluded: “The results represent a potential first step towards transforming the treatment of cancer in peripheral areas of the lungs via a more accurate, patient-specific and minimally invasive approach.”

Professor Valdastri added: “It will be really transformative for many cases of lung cancer. They are often in peripheral areas of the lungs and it is almost impossible to reach them with current technology due to the size of flexible endoscopes used at the moment. We are halving the diameter of these devices and can reach much deeper inside the lungs.”

In a separate study published in the journal Advanced Intelligent Systems, the same researchers managed to use two robotic tentacles at once to carry out brain surgery on a replica skull by pushing the robots in through the nose.

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