Brain Navi Biotechnology, a Taiwan-based startup specializing in innovative navigation robots, received CE mark approval for brain surgery procedures in Q1 2021 for its NaoTrac, a robotic-assisted surgical robot. As the next step Brain Navi Biotechnology is planned to be submitted for FDA clearance.
“Long surgery times, high concentration, and precision requires a lot of physical endurance for neurosurgeons in every procedure. This can in turn affect the surgery’s performance,” said Jerry Chen, M.D., the CEO of Brain Navi Biotechnology. “Utilizing NaoTrac to navigate in the cranial not only reduces anesthesia time, but also improves the patient’s well-being by means of less invasive interventions.”
The NaoTrac is equipped with a high-precision navigation system; the patient registration is performed with a non-contact machine vision process. Surgical instruments are recognized in seconds with its patented registration algorithm.
Surgeons can choose the surgery pathway with a 3D vision for precise anatomical location during the pre-operating planning preparation and monitor the robot during the entire procedure. The unique navigation procedure allows the surgeon to plan and let Surgical Navigation act as an assistant.
“Robotics and artificial intelligence are the future of healthcare, with remarkable potential to not only advance patient care, but increase access to these benefits. Its essential is to increase the degree of accuracy of the surgery,” said Shinn-Zong Lin, M.D. PhD., Superintendent of Hualien Tzu-Chi Medical Center. Dr. Lin is also an honored fellow of AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). Dr. Lin also mentioned that “The technology used by Surgical Navigation Robot can be used in various medical fields, such as immunotherapy, cell transplant, microchip implantation, etc., where a high degree of accuracy is required. Therefore, Surgical Navigation Robot not only has the ability to execute EVD or tumor resection, but it also has the potential to collaborate within these fields.”