Articular cartilage defects are among the most common orthopedic diseases, which seriously affect patients' health and daily activities, without prompt treatment. The repair biocarrier-based treatment has shown great promise. Total joint injection and open surgery are two main methods to deliver functional repair biocarriers into the knee joint. However, the exhibited drawbacks of these methods hinder their utility. The repair effect of total joint injection is unstable due to the low targeting rate of the repair biocarriers, whereas open surgery causes serious trauma to patients, thereby prolonging the postoperative healing time. In this study, we develop a magnetic soft catheter robot (MSCR) system to perform precise in situ repair of articular cartilage defects with minimal incision. The MSCR processes a size of millimeters, allowing it to enter the joint cavity through a tiny skin incision to reduce postoperative trauma. Meanwhile, a hybrid control strategy combining neural network and visual servo is applied to sequentially complete the coarse and fine positioning of the MSCR on the cartilage defect sites. After reaching the target, the photosensitive hydrogel is injected and anchored into the defect sites through the MSCR, ultimately completing the in situ cartilage repair. The in vitro and ex vivo experiments were conducted on a 3D printed human femur model and an isolated porcine femur, respectively, to demonstrate the potential of our system for the articular cartilage repair.

中文翻译：

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用于微创治疗关节软骨缺损的磁软导管机器人系统。


关节软骨缺损是最常见的骨科疾病之一，如果不及时治疗，会严重影响患者的健康和日常活动。基于修复生物载体的治疗已显示出巨大的前景。全关节注射和开放手术是将功能修复生物载体输送到膝关节的两种主要方法。然而，这些方法所表现出的缺点阻碍了它们的实用性。全关节注射修复由于修复生物载体的靶向率较低，修复效果不稳定，而开放手术对患者造成严重创伤，从而延长术后愈合时间。在这项研究中，我们开发了一种磁性软导管机器人（MSCR）系统，能够以最小的切口对关节软骨缺损进行精确的原位修复。 MSCR 的加工尺寸为毫米，可通过微小的皮肤切口进入关节腔，以减少术后创伤。同时，采用神经网络与视觉伺服相结合的混合控制策略，依次完成MSCR对软骨缺损部位的粗、精定位。到达目标后，通过MSCR将光敏水凝胶注入并锚定到缺损部位，最终完成原位软骨修复。体外和离体实验分别在 3D 打印的人类股骨模型和分离的猪股骨上进行，以证明我们的系统在关节软骨修复方面的潜力。