Method, accuracy and limitation of computer interaction in the operating room by a navigated surgical instrument.

This article describes a new interaction device for surgical navigation systems--the so-called navigation mouse system. The idea is to use a tracked instrument of a surgical navigation system like a pointer to control the software. The new interaction system extends existing navigation systems with a microcontroller-unit.

Official measurement protocol and accuracy results for an optical surgical navigation system (NPU).

Image-guided surgical navigation is on the rise in many different areas of modern medicine and is already an established standard in some disciplines like ear nose and throat (ENT) or maxillofacial surgery. When evaluating surgical navigation systems the absolute accuracy of the device is of major concern to the surgeon. The following work presents two different ways of measuring the accuracy of surgical navigation systems using the example of the KARL STORZ Navigation Panel Unit (NPU).

Design and accuracy evaluation of a new navigated drill system for computer assisted ENT-surgery.

In this article a new navigated drill system for computer assisted ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgery is presented. The navigated drill and the microscope probe are part of a surgical navigation system for ENT-surgery. In particular, the accuracy of the new navigated drill is compared to an existing navigated drill experimentally under conditions close to the surgical workflow.

Automatic correction of registration errors in surgical navigation systems.

Surgical navigation systems are used widely among all fields of modern medicine, including, but not limited to ENT- and maxillofacial surgery. As a fundamental prerequisite for image-guided surgery, intraoperative registration, which maps image to patient coordinates, has been subject to many studies and developments. While registration methods have evolved from invasive procedures like fixed stereotactic frames and implanted fiducial markers toward surface-based registration and noninvasive markers fixed to the patient's skin, even the most sophisticated registration techniques produce an imperfect result.

Accuracy study of a new assistance system under the application of Navigated Control® for manual milling on a head phantom.

In this article, a technical study of a new assistance system to support surgeons in milling on the temporal bone is presented. In particular, the overall accuracy of a new assistance system was investigated experimentally under conditions close to surgical practice. For the experiment, the assistance system has been used with its associated navigation system for ear-nose-throat (ENT) surgery.