title: [Robotics in neurosurgery: current status and future prospects].
abstract: Neurosurgery is in essence a field of application development for robots, based on multimodal image guidance. Specific motorized tools have already been developed and routinely applied in stereotaxy to position a probe holder or in conventional neurosurgery to hold a microscope oriented towards a given target. The potentialities of these approaches have triggered industrial developments which are now commercially available. These systems use databases, primarily coming from multimodal numerical images from X-ray radiology to magnetic resonance imaging. These spatially encoded data are transferred through digital networks to workstations where images can be processed and surgical procedures are pre-planned, then transferred to the robotic systems to which they are connected. We have been using a stereotaxic robot since 1989 and a microscope robot since 1995 in various surgical routine procedures. The future of these applications rely mainly on the technical progress in informatics, about image recognition to adapt the pre-planning to the actual surgical situation, to correct brain shifts (for instance), about image fusion, integrated knowledge such as brain atlases, as well as virtual reality. The future developments, covering surgical procedure, research and teaching, are sure to be far beyond our wildest expectations.
authors.affiliation: Département de neurosciences, CHU Albert-Michallon, Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: A L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Benabid
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hoffmann
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ashraf
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Koudsie
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Esteve
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Le Bas
mesh_terms: D005544:Forecasting; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000639:trends; D009493:Neurosurgery / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000639:trends; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000639:trends; D013238:Stereotaxic Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000639:trends