I have just spent the past 4 days at the British Association of Spinal Surgeons 2019 Conference which was an excellent event. As a member of the executive committee I was involved in the organisation of the meeting, giving some lectures and hosting discussions but more importantly I was able to attend some great talks and presentations; one of which was about the future innovations in spinal surgery. There have been significant improvements in technology and it is likely that robotics and navigation will be the norm in the future. This technology is very new and exciting however it is very expensive and yet to be fully proven.
So, what is navigation and how do robots help in spinal surgery?
Robots and navigation in spinal surgery will potentially help spinal surgeons gain greater accuracy in the positioning of screws in the spine when having an operation that involves instrumentation and implants (eg in a fusion). Robots will not do the operation but will assist the surgeon and we may see this at some point in the future.
