“Transforming Pedicle Screw Placements: A robot-assisted cadaveric study”

After almost 2 years of research and a roller coaster of events, the first cadaveric study to validate our, then called, ‘Spine Surgery Robot’ took place on 21st February 2021. The lockdown during Covid had not hampered our spirits in delivering the technology as promised. A bunch of us had traveled to Bangalore where the cadaver study was to happen. Most of the time Operation Rooms (OR) are available only after 5 or 6pm. So the team worked through nights to extensively test the robustness, repeatability and precision of our robotic solution before the study. 

So what exactly is this solution? In response to the growing demand for precise and affordable image guided spine surgeries, our team developed a cost effective platform that provides robotic assistance and navigation guidance to the surgeon to accurately perform a pedicle screw procedure. The advantage of this system is that it requires only 2 intraoperative fluoroscopic images to map the patient position and the robot space, thereby reducing the radiation exposure for the patient as well as the surgeon and staff. The primary ‘eye’ for the entire process is an IR camera. The UR5 robot was integrated into this navigation system to steadily position itself as per the surgical plan. 

Have you seen all the fancy robots servoing and wondered how the surgical plan is actually translated into the accurate robot positioning? Take a peek into our projects and you will get a glimpse of the kinds of problem statements that were tackled to precisely position the robot based on preoperative plans and intraoperative images. 

Coming back to our cadaver study, 5 doctors evaluated this platform over 2 days and inserted about 50 pedicle screws into the cadaver spine. Accuracy plays a key role as even a slight offset from the surgical plan can lead to irreversible damage to the patient. Thus, we would proudly like to say that our cadaveric study was successfully completed with clinically acceptable accuracy. Curious to know the exact numbers? Keep up with our group to access published papers :)