JERUSALEM: Israeli-developed miniature robot guides surgeons through spinal cord operations by functioning as a medical GPS

Record ID: 401701

  • Title: JERUSALEM: Israeli-developed miniature robot guides surgeons through spinal cord operations by functioning as a medical GPS
  • Date: 20th May 2007
  • Summary: ADOMI AND SURGEONS HOLDING NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) SURGEON DOCTOR YAIR BARZILAY, SEATED NEXT TO SURGEON DOCTOR LEON KAPLAN, WHO TOGETHER CARRIED OUT THE OPERATION, SAYING: "We can say that we achieved a very high accuracy with the aid of the robot. It assists to us to aim the instrumentation better and from the few patients that we have done, we think and we
  • Embargoed: 4th June 2007 13:00
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  • Topics: Health
  • Reuters ID: LVA2GKGDV9538T6B68APZ77WSES9
  • Story Text: Israeli surgeons use a soft-drink-can-sized miniature robot to guide them through spinal operations that could minimise damage to vital organs. An Israeli-developed miniature robot accurately guides surgeons through spinal cord operations. According to doctors, it also reduces the possible damage that could be caused to patients.
    Called the SpineAssist, the robot was made at the Technion-Israel institute of Technology, and manufactured by its inventor Moshe Shoam's company called 'Mazor Surgical Technologies' located in the coastal Israeli city of Caesarea.
    A spinal surgery conducted at the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem on Wednesday (May 9) showed how spinal surgeons use the new miniature positioning device.
    According to Ori Adomi, chief executive at Mazor Surgical Technologies, during procedure the SpineAssist is attached to the patient's body -- guiding and positioning tools and implants so that surrounding nerves are not damaged.
    "What I'm holding in my hands now is actually the smallest miniature robotic, the smallest medical robot that exists today in the world. It's an Israeli innovation, it's precision is with microns. Our ability to control it's motion, it was in the area of ten microns. There is nothing like that in the medical robotic in the world," said Adomi.
    He added that by using artificial vision and image processing the SpineAssist navigates itself inside a patient's body, identifying the most accurate position for implants and forms a plan for locating the spinal implants.
    After examining and approving the recommendation, the surgeons insert surgical instruments through the arm of the robot -- minimising the danger of damaging vital organs, he added.
    "As long as we have a digital map of the body itself, and we have it because we get data from the CT and from the X-ray of the patient, we know to point on the CT the target that the surgeon wants to either evacuate or to insert the screw and the system moves actually external to the patient and bring the surgical tool to the right trajectory. It allows minimise invasive and precise localisation of the surgical tool," said Adomi.
    Spine surgeons Doctor Yair Barzilay and Doctor Leon Kaplan of Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem, who performed the spinal procedure by using the robotic device, reported higher levels of accuracy in spinal repair which, they said, minimised the risk of damages caused by implant misplacements.
    "We can say that we achieved a very high accuracy with the aid of the robot. It assists to us to aim the instrumentation better and from the few patients that we have done, we think and we see that the amount of errors is very low," Doctor Barzilay said at a news conference in Hadassah Medical Centre.
    He said that while medical literature reported up to a 50 percent error in placements of pedicle screws in the lumber spine, and up to 30 percent in the thoracic spine, by using the SpineAssist they have achieved an over 90 percent accuracy in spinal penetration.
    Adomi added that by using the robot, surgeons eliminate the need to use continuous X-ray radiation; and that a recent scientific research has found they were exposed to only two percent of the amount of radiation usually found in spinal surgical procedures.
    The spinal repair robot had been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2004 and has since been used in more than 200 operations in the world.
    Adomi compared the SpineAssist to a medical GPS which allows surgeons to safely navigate their implants onto the patient's spine in one of the most common surgical procedures performed throughout the world.
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