Design of biopsy gun for better sampling

Term: 
2023-2024 Spring
Faculty Department of Project Supervisor: 
Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences
Number of Students: 
1

Background: A biopsy is a procedure to remove a small piece of tissue or a sample of cells from your body so that a suspicious tissue can be examined in a laboratory. Tissue samples can be taken from almost anywhere in your body, including skin, organs and other parts. The quality of the sample taken by biopsy is very important for diagnosis, although the way the samples are taken and the tissues taken vary. There are different biopsy techniques described in the literature: Needle biopsies, endoscopic biopsies, skin biopsies, surgical biopsies, bone marrow biopsies.

Needle biopsies are used in the diagnosis of many cancers in daily practice. Needle biopsy technique is divided into two: fine needle aspiration biopsy and thick needle biopsies (Tru-cut biopsies). Thick needle biopsies are performed under local or general anesthesia and accompanied by imaging methods. Compared to the needles used in fine needle aspiration biopsies, larger diameter semi-automatic or automatic biopsy needles are used. After the needle is advanced into the tissue, it is fired and tissue is taken into the notch at the tip of the needle. The needle removed from the tissue is opened outside the patient and the tissue in the notch of the needle is removed by different methods, placed in a container filled with formol and sent to the pathology.

Project Scope: In this project, there are several goals:

- Biopsy gun mechanism needs to be designed such that the firing length can be fine-tuned based on the tissue. 

- The needle tip geometry needs to be designed for larger sampling with minimal deviations of the needle tip (i.e. minimal deflection of the needle inside the tissue).
Learning Outcomes:

- In-depth understanding of CAD modeling and finite-element analysis 

- İn-depth understating on mechanical design 

- Hands-on experience fabrication on 3D Printing

- Learn implementing different optimization algorithms

Suggested Reading:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751616119307775

https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/medicaldevices/article/8/1/015002/376717/Bioinspired-Spring-Loaded-Biopsy-Harvester

 
 
 
 
 

Related Areas of Project: 
Materials Science ve Nano Engineering

About Project Supervisors

Bekir Bediz