If you have been tested for COVID-19, you have probably experienced the unpleasantness of a nasal swab. Someone takes a cotton swab with long hands and sticks it in the nose – wei up your nose – until it reaches the back of the mucous membrane, which is your nasal cavity. Upon arrival, they give the swab a good spin to gather your secrets and defeat a merciful retreat. I can say from personal experience that it is a unique unusual sensation. It’s something that just feels wrong, like the opposite of an itchy scratch.
That may be why I was so upset about the sight of this autonomous nasal swab robot developed by Taiwanese medtech startup Brain Navi. Of all the entities I don’t want cotton swabs sticking my nose in, an industrial robotic arm is pretty high on the list, right between an exciting toddler and an educated mountain gorilla. A nasal swab is required trust.
However, the bot does exist, and the case of Brain Navi for it is more compelling than you might think. As mass testing spans worldwide, the company claims automation of testing could reduce infections and free up medical staff to tackle more urgent work. If we can get our first impressions of a robot with a cotton swab, the company says, it could benefit us all. Doctors The edge talked about the machine, however, were a little more skeptical about its opportunities in the real world.
However, let’s first talk about how it all works. To begin the procedure, a patient does not have a nasal clip that the machine uses to orient itself. They then place their head in a metal bracket, similar to the one used for eye examinations (gripping the handlebars when riding on the world’s heaviest rollercoaster is apparently optional). A camera with depth-sensing then scans their face and measures the distance from nostril to ear canal, which Brain Navi says is a reliable proxy for the depth of the nasal cavity, helping the robot navigate safely in you.
The robot then pulls a cotton swab from its base and comes, with torturous inertia, to the victim patient. It inserts the swab, crawls it, then takes it back, places the sample in a sterile tube for transport and analysis. You can see it all happening below:
Let’s be clear: this is not fun! This looks mildly awful! There is something about the inertia and immutability of the robot’s movements that feels like an implicit threat, and the whole operation has the atmosphere of an early lobotomy.
Brain Navi is well aware of how it all looks. ‘Our founder Jerry [Chen Chieh-Hsiao] was the first to have a nasal swab from the robot and he was scared, ‘said a spokeswoman for the company, Zoe Lee, The edge. But she, she says, it’s all a matter of fame. “I think people will be scared because it’s a new thing, but that’s normal. We have heard the feedback and have figured out how to reduce this horrible feeling. ”
The robot has no pressure sensors to know when it accidentally presses into your flesh, but Lee says the 3D image provides accurate and safe guidance. She also says that if someone feels uncomfortable or in pain, they can just walk away. “We are not chasing you!” she adds.adds
The machine itself is adapted from the main product of Brain Navi: an industrial robotic arm that helps prepare patients for brain surgery. This has recently completed clinical trials in Taiwan and is awaiting regulatory approval. The swab machine has meanwhile only been tested on Brain Navi’s own staff (no problem) and has been approved for their own trials.
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Lee says that CEO of Brain Navi was motivated to make the machine by the SARS epidemic in 2002-4. A friend of Chen’s worked as a doctor during the outbreak and died of the disease. “This is why we want to help and develop a robot to help it [healthcare workers]Says Lee. “They are heroes to us, fighting the pandemic.”
Lee says Brain Navi is in talks with Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan about the possibility of testing the robot on incoming passengers. While she explained, this would be the perfect show case for the benefits of the machine. “Every country wants to reopen its economy and reopen large-scale tests [at airports] maybe the key, ”says Lee. She says the robot can perform a swab in just two minutes and will work non-stop.
Doctors The edge talking about the Brain Navi machine, however, were skeptical. They noted that medical personnel were not as dangerous when taking nasal sprays as long as they had the proper protection, and that the robot was slower than humans. Andrew Lane, director at the Johns Hopkins Sinus Center, said The edge that the basic concept was reasonable and interesting, but that he would like to see more details about the safety procedures of the machine, especially when it comes to navigating the nasal cavity.
“Nasal anatomy can be variable – the nasal septum often deviates to one side or the other, and there are structures in the nose that can vary in size and shape,” Lane said. The edge via e-mail. As a result, it is necessary to insert the nasopharyngeal swab clearly with attention or resistance is met and / if the patient feels pain (beyond normal unpleasant feeling that the swab has been done). With the head somewhat limited, my concern would be that the machine might function as just improperly designed so that the swab runs somewhere that it does not need. “
Lane notes that if the approach angle when performing a swab is also incorrect, then there is a chance that serious damage will occur. “The worst case scenario would be that the swab is pushed through a sinus wall into the eye or brain,” he notes.
One doctor who worked in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) told The edge that their great concern would be the lack of communication with the patient. If you were wearing a nasal swab for the first time, would you feel safe if you could not talk through what happened?
“Nasal swabs are painful, even if you do it to yourself, and I think anyone would be extremely uncomfortable with a machine doing that,” the doctor said. “I think for me and for the majority of the patients I’ve encountered, they want to have a person who understands what it’s like to be on the other side of the swab.”
At the moment, that kind of empathic robots can’t just deliver at the end of a swab.
