Background: Computer assisted surgery has reached an advanced stage of development and offers new possibilities in daily surgical procedures.
Methods: The MKM(R) - is a navigation system fitted with a laser-guided, autofocus-microscope for referencing purposes. The coordinates can be set using various marker systems and a special workstation is used for preoperative planning. It is possible to add landmarks and display them in the surgeon's eyepiece. The clinical integration, the time required for the use of the navigation system and the intraoperative accuracy of the system were evaluated on the basis of 136 lateral skull base procedures.
Results: The degree of accuracy is determined by the type, amount and positioning of markers. The adjustment of reference points should be carried out following macrosurgery in order to avoid shifting factors. For an additional increase in accuracy, an improvement in the spatial resolution of the CT scans is required, with a section thickness of 1 mm and a pixel size of 0.5mm. The bone-anchored structures of the temporal bone do not underlie shifting or extensive intraoperative swelling. Skull base surgery is, therefore, ideally suited for the application of CAS. We found that registration was accurate to less than 1 mm (0.68 mm +/- 0.17 mm) and that the MKM(R) system made an additional contribution to surgical safety by identifying important structures.
Conclusions: A practical accuracy found to be approximately one millimetre suggests that the non-invasive referencing system may be effective, accurate and useful for computer assisted identification of vital structures. We expect navigation systems to improve the quality and reduce the risks of surgical intraventions.