Robot-Assisted Stereotactic and Spinal Neurosurgery: A Review of Literature

Development of stereotactic neurosurgery occurred due to the special area of interest within the neurosurgery, the necessity for precise targeting within the skull, and the specificity of the technique demanding superior precision. Number of technological developments and improvements, especially in pre and intraoperative imaging and guidance, as well as microscopy brought neurosurgeons to their skill limits. Thus, robotic-assisted surgery provided better posture, visualization, precision, localization and accuracy. In recent decades, robotic neurosurgery and robot-assisted neurosurgery have been developed and strengthened within it, which, in addition to the advantages of an experienced clinician, benefits from significant advantages of robots such as better preoperative planning, non-fatigue, steady motion with limitless reproducibility, superior precision, localization, and accuracy, etc. The growing area expands to spinal neurosurgery where it is mostly used for precise screw placement reducing length of the procedure, complications, and radiation exposure. Hereby, we present a review of robotic systems used nowadays in stereotactic and spinal neurosurgery.