Congratulations to the following undergraduate students who won the BMES Medtronic Student Design Competition at the BMES Annual Meeting in Philadelphia:

Team members include Altaful Amin, Justina Chan, Alexander Dluzneski, Youssef Elbanna, Marye Lee, Brian Nazareth, Henry Nguyen, and Giancarlo Tejeda.

The faculty mentor was Dr. Samsun Lampotang, the senior design instructor was Dr. Lakiesha Williams and the competition mentor was Dr. Sarah Rowlinson.

The team won with their project entitled, Transrectal & Transperineal Ultrasound Mixed Reality Simulation. The 2019 design theme was digital imaging. The team was asked to improve or reinvent the practice of viewing the body through devices.

Project and Competition Details:
A positive diagnosis of prostate cancer is obtained only via pathology examination of biopsy samples, whereby samples are observed to contain cancerous cells. However, there is a 21-47% rate of false-negative biopsies. This false-negative biopsy reports unnecessarily delay initiation of treatment, which, in turn, may give time for localized prostate cancer to metastasize and spread to other organs and organ systems, reducing options, complicating treatment and worsening outcomes.

The team designed an ultrasound-guided prostate biopsy mixed-reality simulation, in collaboration with UF Center for Safety, Simulation & Advanced Learning Technologies (CSSALT), with the aim of developing a cost-effective and portable educational simulator that would allow clinicians to assess their performance and improve their prostate biopsy techniques. This device combined both virtual components, such as ultrasound images and anatomical diagram guides, with tracked physical components, such as a physical prostate, needle gun and ultrasound probe. The simulator used an existing commercial tracking system in conjunction with 3D visualization to provide clinicians a means to practice and refine their technique in a low-risk, low-stress environment. More importantly, the simulator provided real-time feedback on biopsy locations and probe positioning in relation to both physically and virtually simulated prostate. The simulator software was based on the SMARTS-SDK (developed by CSSALT) and implemented in the Unity3D game engine.

As of now, the team has passed our design to UF CSSALT. UF CSSALT has already adopted the design to be used in international studies, which have shown initial positive results in reducing false-negative rates and improving the accuracy of biopsies.