Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Oct;15(s2):S28-S37.
doi: 10.14444/8138.

Spine Image Guidance and Robotics: Exposure, Education, Training, and the Learning Curve

Brendan F Judy  1 , Zachary Pennington  1 , David Botros  1 , Yohannes Tsehay  1 , Srujan Kopparapu  1 , Ann Liu  1 , Nicholas Theodore  1 , Hesham M Zakaria  1
Affiliations

Spine Image Guidance and Robotics: Exposure, Education, Training, and the Learning Curve

Brendan F Judy et al. Int J Spine Surg. 2021 Oct.

Abstract

The use of intraoperative robotics and imaging for spine surgery has been shown to be safe, efficacious, and beneficial to patients, offering accurate placement of instrumentation, decreased operative time and blood loss, and improved postoperative outcomes. Despite these proven benefits, it has yet to be uniformly adopted. One of the major barriers for universal adoption of intraoperative robotics is the learning curve for this complex technology, in conjunction with a lack of formalized training. These same obstacles for universal adoption were faced in the introduction of surgical technology in other disciplines, and the use of this technology has become the standard of care in some of those specialties. Part of the success and widespread implementation of prior novel technology was the introduction of formalized training systems, which are currently lacking in advanced spine surgical technology. Therefore, the future success of intraoperative robotics and imaging for spine surgery depends on the creation of a formalized training system. We detail the best techniques for surgical pedagogy, as well as propose a comprehensive curriculum.

Keywords: navigation; robotic surgery; spine surgery.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

IRB Approval: The contents of this manuscript do not meet National Institutes of Health definitions for human subject research. The Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine deemed that IRB approval was not required for this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Scott's parabola.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Operating room setup for robotic spine surgery.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Walker CT, Kakarla UK, Chang SW, Sonntag VKH. History and advances in spinal neurosurgery. J Neurosurg Spine. 2019;31(6):775–785. doi: 10.3171/2019.9.SPINE181362. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Kochanski RB, Lombardi JM, Laratta JL, Lehman RA, O'Toole JE. Image-guided navigation and robotics in spine surgery. Neurosurgery. 2019;84(6):1179–1189. doi: 10.1093/neuros/nyy630. - DOI - PubMed
    1. D'Souza M, Gendreau J, Feng A, Kim LH, Ho AL, Veeravagu A. Robotic-assisted spine surgery: history, efficacy, cost, and future trends. Robot Surg. 2019;6:9–23. doi: 10.2147/RSRR.S190720. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Li HM, Zhang RJ, Shen CL. Accuracy of pedicle screw placement and clinical outcomes of robot-assisted technique versus conventional freehand technique in spine surgery from nine randomized controlled trials: a meta-analysis. Spine (Phila Pa 1976) 2020;45(2):E111–E119. doi: 10.1097/BRS.0000000000003193. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Fu W, Tong J, Liu G, et al. Robot-assisted technique vs conventional freehand technique in spine surgery: a meta-analysis. Int J Clin Pract. 2021;75(5):e13964. doi: 10.1111/ijcp.13964. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources