Acrobot has developed the Acrobot Navigator, a surgical navigation system that uses mechanical tracking of surgical instruments relative to the patient to achieve high surgical accuracy.
This enables exact and accurate bone preparation and implant positioning by the surgeon.
This system features a powerful computer together with two tracking arms mounted within a trolley.
By combining data provided by the tracking arms and pre-planned data, the computer screen shows the surgeon his movements in real-time, providing corroboration of the pre-planned data and ensuring that the bone will be prepared accurately and precisely placed.
Designer Kinneir Dufort and toolmaker Midas collaborated to make the trolley enclosure panels.
Midas and Kinneir Dufort worked closely to combine metal castings and large PUR mouldings for the trolley.
Midas made all the tooling and pattern equipment and sourced the castings to make sure the trolley's joint lines were identical and evenly matched.
Graeme Brookes, chief executive officer of Acrobot, said: 'Surgeons will be able to use the Acrobot Navigator system for smaller and smaller incisions, looking at issues such as optimum size prostheses and bone conservation.
'Smaller incisions bring benefits such as increased mobility for patients at an earlier stage (reducing hospital costs) and better rehabilitation.
'This product can enhance conventional instrumentation, enabling better bone preparation and more accurate implant positioning, offering improved efficiency and cost savings.' Navigator is currently being used by Charing Cross Hospital and the London Clinic.
