Surgical robot is a new technology which has emerged just in recent years; however, nowadays, it has become a hot topic in the field of medical engineering research that all the country in the world competing for. After nearly a decade of painstaking research, Dr. Zhangchunlin, from the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, has finally developed the first non-framework spinal navigation surgical robot in the world; moreover, he has successfully applied the robot in animal experiments and human’s spine specimens, and thus satisfactorily resolved the technical problem that the implantation accuracy of pedicle screw.

Intravertebral pedicle fixation system has been widely used in spine surgery and the implantation accuracy of pedicle screw is the key factor for the success of surgery in that even the slightest error could damage nerve and thus lead to paralysis. It is reported that the failure rate of it can reach more than 30%; aiming at this problem, all the countries in the world competed for the development of medical device which can implant pedicle screw into patient’s pedicle accurately. A framework-type spine surgical micro-robot (Spine assist), for example, has been developed first by a physician in Israel in 2005; in addition, it has been preliminarily applied in the clinical treatment. Before operation, a framework will be fixed in the back of patient and then an auxiliary aiming mechanism is installed on the framework; at last, physician excides skill and completes the surgery. However, it has not been used in the clinical treatment widely due to its complex operation and low accuracy.  

In order to overcome the problem above, in 2001, Dr. Zhangchunlin organized and established a surgical robot research group which was composed of software engineers, machinists and orthopedic experts. In the absence of any previous experience, they designed and tested robot time and again and have finally developed the first non-framework spinal navigation surgical robot with completely independent intellectual property rights in the world. This robot was composed of a manipulator, a mobile unit and a computer control system. While carrying out operation, instead of installing a framework on the back of patient, it can make use of an X-ray imaging system to make sure the position of axial lead of pedicle, then, by means of controlling the robot remotely, a guide pin in the hollow manipulator can be implanted into pedicle along with axial lead; an accurate navigation puncture will be completed under the axial guide of X-ray and the pedicle screw will be finally implanted into the pedicle along with the guide pin. The results of human vertebral specimens and animal experiments showed that the implantation accuracy reached 100%. After testing, the robot showed a flexible and smooth operation and its precision can reach 0.1mm which can not be realized by traditional surgeries. Thanks to the robot is controlled by a console, therefore, it is unnecessary for physicians to expose themselves under the X-ray and repeated  transilluminations are necessary too, and thus the damages caused by them on doctors can be avoided finally. Moreover, the robot also has the advantages of simple, safe and reliable operation, perfect repeatability and short learning curve etc, and thus be convenient for the training of spine surgery doctors. 

The successful development of the non-framework spinal navigation surgical robot has made China’s spine surgery to step into a new level and provided valuable experiences for extending China’s robot technology to other medical fields. Remote surgery will be realized after combining it with network communication technology and the people in the remote poverty-stricken areas can also share the first-class medical services in the near future.