Projects

Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most prevalent symptoms of degenerative spine disease, affecting millions of people around the world. It significantly reduces patient quality of life and places a substantial burden on healthcare systems. While spinal surgery offers effective pain relief in severe cases, minimally invasive pedicle screw placement (MIPSP) has gained increasing attention due to its reduced invasiveness and faster ...

The etiology of many musculoskeletal diseases is related to biomechanical factors. The pathological changes occurring in the joint will reflect in the abnormal movement patterns (kinematics). However, the tools to measure the motion patterns of the patients used by clinicians and researchers are often crude and subjective leading to sub-optimal patient analyses and cure. Image-based techniques (CT, MRI, X-ray) are often just “static images”, ...

A key motivation for introducing robotic systems in the operating room has been their ability to deliver superhuman performance. Surgical robots are able to execute precise gestures that rapidly and stably position instruments in many degrees of freedom (DOFs). However, for the vast majority of surgical procedures, positioning precision alone is not sufficient to realize the “right gesture”. Surgical plans are generally only a ...

We will explore the potential of in-house developed innovations in the field of fetal imaging, image-guided procedures and minimally invasive fetal surgery for spina bifida. These innovations include an anti-adhesive patch, ultrasound-guiding system, neural stem cells, and a patient-empowered medical multicenter perinatal database.

Adult non-traumatic spinal cord injury is caused by an acquired and progressive stenosis of the cervical spinal canal with chronic compression of the spinal cord. The most common cause is a degenerative process named degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM). This disease is being diagnosed with increasing prevalence because of the aging population. To date, various biomarkers of spinal cord tissue damage by chronic ...

FAROS aims at improving functional accuracy through embedding physical intelligence in surgical robotics. A key motivation for introducing robots in operating rooms has been their ability to deliver superhuman performance. However, for the vast majority of surgical procedures, robotic positioning precision alone is not sufficient to realize the “right gesture”. Indeed, surgical accuracy is a different concept from standard engineering notions ...

Adult spinal deformity (ASD) is a complex disorder of the spinal column that results in a wide range of three-dimensional (3D) spinal deformities, often leading to a severe disability during activities of daily life for those affected by it. Surgical treatments aiming to realign the spine within normative values by fusing together individual vertebrae with rods and screws have been increasingly used to treat ASD. ...

Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS) is a growth defect of the spine that primarily occurs in pre-pubertal children and is defined as a 3D deformity of the spine. When a curve reaches 50 degrees and is clinically expected to progress, surgery is recommended. Even though AIS is a 3D spinal deformity the surgical decision making is still based on 2D static radiographic parameters. The lack of 3D and dynamic criteria driving the selection of ...