Image Guidance Surgery

Image guided surgery, is a technique that assists a surgeon during a minimally invasive spine surgery. It is able to provide the surgeon with high quality visual input as they traverse the highly complex surgical landscape. This enables the surgeon to perform difficult surgeries with high accuracy and limited complications. Several medical conditions, trauma and age-related changes may cause severe pain and discomfort of your spine and surrounding structures.  Depending upon your specific case and associated factors, your doctor may use different approaches to reach your vertebrae and make necessary corrections.

Indications of Image Guidance Surgery

Image Guidance Surgery may be indicated for a number of medical conditions including:

• Cervical spine surgery
• Atlantoaxial instability
• Odontoid fracture
• Disc surgery of thoracic spine
• Ossified longitudinal ligaments
• Extra-pedicular screw positioning 
• Tumour surgery
• Correction of spinal deformity

This procedure may be required in minimally invasive surgeries for patients who have failed to respond to more conservative methods of treatment such as physical therapy and pain medications.

Image Guidance Surgery procedure

Typically for an image guidance surgery (IGS), your orthopaedic surgeon will decide the surgical approach based on your condition. The surgery will take place under general anaesthesia. The surgeon uses an intraoperative imaging method such as C-arm fluoroscopy (C-arm), portable X-ray (XR) radiography, and portable cone-beam computed tomography (O-arm) for image guided surgery. This continuous real-time image is used to determine the correct site for the incisions required for the particular surgery and allows for enhanced visualisation of the relationship of bony and neural structures. Further, IGS is useful in determining the position of the instruments and aids in tumour resection, implant placement and fixation procedures. Once the surgical procedure is complete, the incision is surgically closed layer by layer and wound is dressed.

Postoperative patient-care 

Typically, post-surgery you may feel slight pain around the incision area that can be relieved with prescribed pain medications. Depending on the procedure done and your healing progress, you may sent home the same day as the procedure or within a span of a week. You are given diet, wound care and rest instructions before discharge from the hospital.

Recovery

Your pre-operative symptoms of pain and discomfort may be relieved immediately following the surgery, or they may slowly subside over period of few weeks. You can return to desk work within a few weeks to months after approval from your surgeon.