Abstract
The use of robots to aid in cranial surgery derives its origins from stereotactic surgery, which was later coupled with computed tomography imaging in the 1980s. The first robotic systems were navigational and performed procedures on deep brain structures such as brain biopsies and depth electrode placement. Since that time, autonomous and semiautonomous robots have been developed that use navigation coupled with guiding either surgical manipulators or surgical tools such as drills to aid with complex open skull-base surgery. The applications currently being explored include drilling of the temporal bone for resection of vestibular schwannomas, placement of cochlear implants, and performing mastoidectomies. These procedures are otherwise time consuming and require millimetric accuracy; however, because they can be largely done with image guidance and real-time tool position information feedback, they may be partially done by a robot. This is an ideal application of Computer Assisted Design–Computer Automated Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) principles because the bone is a rigid structure that will not deform significantly of shift during surgery. In this chapter, we discuss the current prototypes of robots available for aiding in skull-base surgery.
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Robotic automated skull-base drilling of temporal bone in a cadaver (MP4 70,656 kb)
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Kundu, B., Couldwell, W.T. (2021). Robotic Automated Skull-Base Drilling. In: Marcus, H.J., Payne, C.J. (eds) Neurosurgical Robotics. Neuromethods, vol 162. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0993-4_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0993-4_10
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