ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Interstitial brachytherapy (BT) is becoming an accepted treatment option for head and neck cancer patients for whom surgery poses high risks. Multimodal, image-guided, robotic surgery has the potential to allow precise seed implantation into tumors. Our aim was to introduce a new multimodal, image-guided surgical robot during the performance of interstitial BT for the treatment of tumors in the head and neck regions. METHODS: Clinical data for three patients were analyzed, retrospectively; patients had received 125 I seed implantations from July 2019 to October 2019. Multimodal, image-guided, robotic surgery was performed in all patients. Postoperative computed tomography data were imported to software to evaluate the accuracy of the seed position and the operation times. RESULTS: The mean placement error of the 125 I seed was 1.9 ± 0.74 mm. The mean operation time is 47 minutes. CONCLUSION: The experimental results showed that the Remebot has promise for use during BT for the head and neck.
