A Survey of Needle Steering Approaches in Minimally Invasive Surgery

In virtue of a curved insertion path inside tissues, needle steering techniques have revealed the potential with the assistance of medical robots and images. The superiority of this technique has been preliminarily verified with several maneuvers: target realignment, obstacle circumvention, and multi-target access. However, the momentum of needle steering approaches in the past decade leads to an open question—“How to choose an applicable needle steering approach for a specific clinical application?” This survey discusses this question in terms of design choices and clinical considerations, respectively. In view of design choices, this survey proposes a hierarchical taxonomy of current needle steering approaches. Needle steering approaches of different manipulations and designs are classified to systematically review the design choices and their influences on clinical treatments. In view of clinical consideration, this survey discusses the steerability and acceptability of the current needle steering approaches. On this basis, the pros and cons of the current needle steering approaches are weighed and their suitable applications are summarized. At last, this survey concluded with an outlook of the needle steering techniques, including the potential clinical applications and future developments in mechanical design.