Unbounded Medicine

Neurosurgery is about to change with the arrival of Neuro Arm, a new robot system developed by specialists of The Calgary University.

This device was designed by Garnette Sutherland, a neurosurgeon who worked the last 6 years to make the device that frees the surgeons of the possible faults caused by the human hand.

“Many of our microsurgery techniques come from the 60s, and have put to the surgeons the lack of the exactitude, precision, skills and resistance,” explained the professor of neurosurgery.

“Neuro Arm shows a spatial resolutions that allows neurosurgeons to operate with such precision tha we could speak of a cellular level.”

It is designed to be operated by a neurosurgeon from a workstation, the robot operates with a system of realtime images, offering a detail without precedent, and a better control of the equipment.

The surgical tests of Neuro Arm in the human patient are in process, and we hope that the first surgery with this device could be this summer,” added Sutherland.

This surgical device was designed and made in collaboration with MDA, a well-known company to participate with the NASA in the development of the robotic arm Canadarm2, used in the space shuttles. The project began in 2001, had a cost of 2 million dollars, mainly provided by B.J. and Don Seaman.

“The best surgeons can work in a space of 1/8 of inch, whereas this robot does possible to work in a space of the wide one of a hair,” explained Don Seaman.