IMPROVEMENT OF COMPUTER- AND ROBOT- ASSISTED SURGERY AT THE LATERAL SKULL BASE BY SENSORY FEEDBACK

Abstract

Lately, surgeons performing lateral skull base surgery have been paying more attention to the development and advancement of computer-aided surgical procedures. Especially the interconnection between electronic hearing implants (i.e.) MET Otologics Transducer) and receptor tissues requires an accurate milling of skul cavities to ensure a proper angle of coupling and a long term stable fixation. We developed a PC-based computer- and robot assisted system for the precise and efficient planning and execution of surgical processes at the lateral skull. Employing multimodal sensory feedback, the geometry of the surgical area can be analyzed with a resolution of several mikrometer. Laboratory testing demonstrated that thereby robot-assisted skull base surgery could be improved. Both the reliability and the efficiency of the performed surgical process steps were augmented. In addition, the acquired data could be used to implement an exhaustive intraoperative procedural documentation needed for quality assurance and quality management tasks.