Universal Calibration of Surgical Instruments for Spinal Stereotaxy

Abstract

Most stereotactic systems have only a standard probe or limited instruments for localization, targeting, and tracking a procedure. The surgeon then resumes the operation using standard surgical instruments without the benefit of image guidance for the key steps of the procedure. Because each surgical step for screw placement in the spine has a potential for error, use of multiple instruments that can be interchanged for real-time image-guided spinal surgery may increase the accuracy and safety of spinal instrumentation procedures. These techniques can also be applied to intracranial image-guided surgery.