The Application Accuracy of the NeuroMate Robot—A Quantitative Comparison with Frameless and Frame-Based Surgical Localization Systems

TLDR

The NeuroMate™ robot is a commercially available, image‑guided robotic system for stereotactic neurosurgery. This study quantitatively compares the application accuracy of the NeuroMate with standard frame‑based and frameless stereotactic techniques. A five‑way comparison measured RMS errors using 2‑mm CT sections: robot frame‑based (0.86 mm), robot frameless (1.95 mm), standard stereotactic frame (1.17 mm), infrared tracking with frame fiducial (1.47 mm), and infrared tracking with screw markers (0.68 mm). The frame‑based NeuroMate robot achieves application accuracy comparable to standard localizing systems, regardless of frame‑based or infrared‑tracked setups.

Abstract

The NeuroMate™ robot system (Integrated Surgical Systems, Davis, CA) is a commercially available, image-guided, robotic-assisted system used for stereotactic procedures in neurosurgery. In this article, we present a quantitative comparison of the application accuracy of the NeuroMate with that of standard frame-based and frameless stereotactic techniques. The article discusses a five-way application accuracy comparison study. The variables of our comparison and their mean errors are as follows: (1) with the robot in a frame-based configuration, the RMS was 0.86 ± 0.32 mm; (2) with the robot in the frameless configuration, the RMS was 1.95 ± 0.44 mm; (3) in a standard stereotactic (ZD) frame-based approach, the RMS was 1.17 ± 0.25 mm; (4) with an infrared tracking system using the frame for fiducial registration, the RMS was 1.47 ± 0.45 mm; (5) with an infrared tracking system using screw markers for registration, the RMS was 0.68 ± 0.26 mm. The study was performed with 2-mm sections of CT scans. These results show that the application accuracy of the frame-based NeuroMate robot is comparable to that of standard localizing systems, whedier they are frame-based or infrared tracked.