This Bloodsucking Robot Is For Medical Procedures Only, Don't Panic

Scientists believe that a bloodsucking robot can help you expand your lifespan by drawing your blood at the doctor’s office.

Veinpuncture, or having your blood drawn, is one of the most common medical procedures that happen every day. Though this procedure requires less rigor than various others (heart surgery for example), practitioner error or different patient physiology can result in failed or extended procedures, hence extra costs, especially with patients that have DVA (difficult vein access). So, to improve this process for not only healthcare providers but also patients, researchers have come up with a robot that’s hand-held, ultrasound-guided with the capability of locating veins then drawing blood from patients.

In terms of accuracy and success rate, the research team conducted an experiment with 31 volunteer patients. While 25 of them had normal veins, the other 6 had DVA, which means these six patients had veins that rolled away from the needle or were difficult to locate. The robot could work well with both of the groups as it had an ultrasound probe for identifying blood vessels to insert the needle, an electromagnetic needle loader, as well as manipulator.

In the trials, a physician located the patients’ vein using, then manually positioned the robot over their forearm. Next, the ultrasound probe was used for determining vessel location, this information was then sent to the needle manipulator to ensure the accuracy of the insertion point. Then, the robot inserted the needle and extracted 5 ml of blood from the patient. The study authors write that they would have considered the procedure successful if they could insert the needle, draw the blood in two tries.

According to the study, the overall success rate was 87% for 31 patients and 97% for the 25 patients that didn’t have DVA. For all the patients, the procedure was completed in between 1.5 and 2 minutes. The authors added that the accuracy rate for non-DVA patients was as high as that of clinical results, and the rate for DVA patients was higher than the clinical results.

The first author of the study, Josh Leipheimer, said that these results are promising.

However, there’s still a long way to go as the authors say that most errors were due to blood vessels rolling from the needle. They hope that in the future, they can improve the design of this bloodsucking robot using the ultrasonic probe for predicting when the blood vessel may roll to change the needle’s angle according to the movement.

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