Thesis: Development of a novel method using optical coherence tomography (OCT) for guidance of robotized interventional endoscopy

PhD defense: Oscar CARAVACA MORA

Title: Development of a novel method using optical coherence tomography (OCT) for guidance of robotized interventional endoscopy

Team: AVR - IPP

Abstract: There exists an unmet clinical need to provide doctors with a new method that streamlines minimally invasive treatment to single operator procedures assisted by in-situ and real-time accurate tissue characterization for informed treatment decisions in management of colorectal cancer. A promising solution to this problem has been developed by the AVR team at the ICube laboratory, in which the flexible interventional endoscope (Karl Storz) was completely robotized, so allowing a single operator to independently telemanipulate the endoscope and two insertable therapeutic instruments with a joint control unit. However, the robotic-assisted flexible endoscope is subject to the same diagnostic accuracy limitations as standard endoscopy systems. It has been demonstrated that endoscopic OCT has a good potential for imaging disorders in the gastrointestinal track and differentiating healthy tissue from diseased. Currently, OCT is limited to imaging of the human esophagus, which has a simple geometry and easy access. Neither OCT, nor the robotized endoscope can solve the limitations of current standard of care for colon cancer management alone. Combining these two technologies and developing a new platform for early detection and treatment of cancer is the main interest of this thesis, with the aim of developing a state of the art OCT imaging console and probe integrated with the robotized endoscope. The main hypothesis behind this doctoral project is that a fusion of real-time microscopic endoscopic OCT with a robotized interventional flexible endoscope can allow imaging of the interior of the large intestine for tissue characterization and treatment assistance allowing a single operator to perform minimally invasive treatment in the telemanipulation mode.

The committee of the defense is composed of :

• Dr. Michalina Gora – CNRS, University of Strasbourg (Thesis Supervisor)
• Prof. Michel de Mathelin – University of Strasbourg  (Thesis Director)
• Dr. Paul Montgomery – CNRS, University of Strasbourg  (Thesis Director)
• Prof. Nicolas Andreffe – FEMTO ST, Besancon (Reviewer)
• Dr. Maciej Szkulmowski - Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland (Reviewer)
• Prof. Hans Zappe – University of Freiburg, Germany
• Prof. Claude Boccara – Langevin Institute, Paris

The defense will be held in English on Friday 21^st of February 2020 at 2:00 pm in the conference room at ground floor of the IHU (1 Place de l'Hôpital, 67000 Strasbourg).