The team at Tri-Service General Hospital has developed the "Smart Micro-Spinal Guidance System," which integrates preoperative planning, standardized guiding templates, and precision fixation techniques to assist spinal surgeries with high precision, enhancing success rates and reducing radiation exposure. This system optimizes surgical preparation time and includes a simulation system to minimize the risk of nerve damage.

As the demand for spinal surgery increases annually, the high cost of traditional navigation equipment makes it unaffordable for many small and medium-sized medical institutions. To address this issue, Dr. Wei-Hsiu Liu, Director of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Tri-Service General Hospital, led his team to develop the "Smart Micro-Spinal Guidance System." The core of this system lies in integrating preoperative planning and surgical guiding template technology to achieve low-cost, high-precision spinal surgery. This system reduces surgical risks and radiation exposure for patients and improves the operating efficiency of doctors.

Precise Planning and Operation: Enhancing Surgical Safety and Efficiency

The Smart Micro-Spinal Guidance System consists of three core technologies, which not only provide high-precision assistance in spinal surgery but also significantly reduce costs and improve operational efficiency for medical institutions. The key technologies include:

Preoperative Planning System: This system converts the patient's imaging data into precise surgical plans. Through software analysis, doctors can foresee potential risks during the surgery and adjust the surgical plan accordingly. This ensures the accuracy of every surgical step, especially in common conditions such as spinal slippage and herniated discs, significantly improving the success rate and patient recovery speed.

Guiding Template System: Traditional surgical guiding plates require 3D printing and sterilization, which not only increase costs but also extend preparation time. This system overcomes these challenges by standardizing and regularizing the guiding plates. Doctors can directly choose the appropriate template for surgery, thus shortening preparation time and reducing radiation exposure during the procedure. It particularly optimizes the angle of screw insertion for spinal slippage and herniated discs, ensuring stable fixation and greatly reducing radiation and medical risks during surgery.

Precision Transverse Process Fixation Guide Plate System: This technology is designed for handling complex spinal conditions, such as spinal tumors, high cervical spine surgeries, and scoliosis. It provides multiple-point fixation to ensure that the guide plate remains stable during difficult surgeries. Through precise design, the fixation guide plate will not wobble due to the unique anatomical structure of the spine, reducing operational errors.

Additionally, the team has developed a simulated surgical system, which can comprehensively simulate complex spinal surgeries. In cases of spinal structural abnormalities or high risks of nerve damage, doctors can perform simulated operations beforehand to further reduce surgical risks. The system uses a bionic spinal simulator and intraoperative nerve function monitoring devices to accurately reproduce the spinal and nerve structures, simulating nerve changes during surgery. This allows doctors to familiarize themselves with the affected area before surgery, enabling them to make more accurate surgical decisions.

Pioneering a New Era in Spinal Surgery: Technological Innovation Leading the Future of Healthcare

Dr. Wei-Hsiu Liu stated that the development of this system not only solves the issues of high costs and large space requirements associated with traditional navigation systems but also provides precise assistance during surgery to reduce risks. He emphasized that this technology, with its low cost, high precision, and simple operation, is expected to be widely promoted in Taiwan and the global market, particularly catering to the needs of outpatient surgical centers (ASCs) in the United States, offering significant market potential.

Resource: 體分析影像搭配規格化導引板 降脊椎手術風險