Briefly, the invention relates to a surgical tool and method for forming a pilot bore by inserting a guide wire into bone. The surgical tool is constructed and arranged for use in conjunction with X-ray or ultrasound machines. More particularly, the device includes a cannulated hand grip and driving tool used for the rotation of a bone or pedicle screw into bone. The rear portion of the hand grip includes a slide assembly that is suited to grip a guide wire. The slide assembly includes a user adjustable stop to control the sliding movement of the guide wire. The rear surface of the slide is constructed to be impacted with a hammer or similar device, whereby the stop prevents the guide wire from penetrating the bone further than desired. Should it be desired that the wire be retracted, a jack member is included to allow the wire to be precisely retracted. The hand grip is securable to various surgical driving tools for the purpose of providing the ability to cooperate with various brands of pedicle screws and other surgical implants for spinal procedures.

Certain aspects relate to systems and techniques for articulating medical instruments. In one aspect, the instrument includes a wrist having at least two degrees of freedom of movement, and an end effector coupled to the wrist. The end effector can include an upper jaw, a lower jaw, and a firing mechanism configured to form staples in tissue. Actuation of the firing mechanism can be decoupled from the movement of the wrist in the at least two degrees of freedom.

A histotripsy therapy system configured for the treatment of tissue is provided, which may include any number of features. Provided herein are systems and methods that provide efficacious non-invasive and minimally invasive therapeutic, diagnostic and research procedures. In particular, provided herein are optimized systems and methods that provide targeted, efficacious histotripsy in a variety of different regions and under a variety of different conditions without causing undesired tissue damage to intervening/non-target tissues or structures.

Systems and methods for attaching a reference marker to a patient in a computer-assisted image-guided surgery system. An apparatus for attaching a reference marker to a patient includes an elongated member extending between a first end and a second end, a sharp tip located proximate to the first end of the elongated member that is configured to break through a cortical surface of a bone of the patient to enable the elongated member to be advanced into the bone, an anchoring device that is extendable from the elongated member in order to anchor the apparatus within the bone and inhibit relative movement of the apparatus and the bone, and a reference marker device comprising at least one optical marker configured to enable the apparatus to be tracked using a motion tracking system.

A device including a sheath having a proximal end, a distal end, and a lumen extending through the sheath from the proximal end to the distal end, wherein the sheath is biased to a released position; a pull wire extending along the sheath and being coupled to the sheath at the distal end, wherein the pull wire and the sheath are configured to cooperate such that pulling the pull wire toward the proximal end causes the distal end to assume an active position, and such that release of the pull wire causes the distal end to return to the released position; and a control portion coupled to the proximal end of the sheath and to the pull wire, wherein the control portion includes a control element operable to selectively pull the pull wire toward the proximal end of the sheath or to release the pull wire.

Systems and methods for delivery a medical device to a heart valve annulus are disclosed. A method of delivering a medical device to a heart valve annulus includes: (1) aligning a first imaging sensor such that a view of the first imaging sensor is along a primary plane of the heart valve annulus; (2) aligning a second imaging sensor such that a view of the second imaging sensor is along a longitudinal axis of the heart valve annulus; (3) attaching a delivery system holding the medical device to a delivery arm; (4) adjusting the delivery arm to set an angle of the delivery system perpendicular to the primary plane using images from the first imaging sensor; (5) adjusting the delivery arm to center the delivery device in the heart valve annulus using images from the second imaging sensor; and (6) deploying the medical device into the heart valve annulus.

An intervention system employing an interventional robot (30), an interventional imaging modality (10) and an interventional controller (70). In 5 operation, the interventional controller (70) navigates an anatomical roadmap (82) of an anatomical region of a patient in accordance with an interventional plan to thereby control a navigation of the interventional robot (30) within the anatomical region in accordance with the anatomical roadmap (82). Upon a detection by the interventional controller (70) of an occurrence of the interventional controller (70) navigating 10 proximately to a critical anatomical location within the anatomical roadmap (82), the interventional controller (70) pauses the navigation of the interventional robot (30) within anatomical region and autonomously controls an operation of the interventional imaging modality (10) for generating an updated anatomical roadmap (82) of the anatomical region whereby the interventional controller (70) navigates the updated 15 anatomical roadmap (82) of the anatomical region in accordance with the interventional plan to thereby control a resumed navigation of the interventional robot (30) within the anatomical region.

The present disclosure relates to a method and a data processing system for generating navigable images of at least one region of interest ROI of a patient for a fluoroscopy-based navigation system using an X-ray imaging system, a localization system and an imaging kit, said imaging kit being configured to allow images registration in a preferred referential and tracking of surgical tools.

The invention relates to a method for determining a safety criterion during an autonomous manipulation of a surgical tool (13) by a robotic system (1) to treat an anatomical structure (B) according to a planned trajectory (T.sub.3D) in a 3D image (I.sub.3D), said 3D image being registered with a patient tracker (30), and the robotic system (1) being servo-controlled on the movements of the patient tracker (30), the method comprising: a. acquiring at least one 2D X-ray image (I2D) containing the anatomical structure and the surgical tool by an X-ray imaging system (2), and for each at least one 2D X-ray acquisition: i. synchronously localizing the surgical tool and

registering the 2D X-ray image (I.sub.2D) with the 3D image (I.sub.3D) in a region of interest around the anatomical structure, iii. generating a projection onto the 2D X-ray image (I.sub.2D) of a model of the surgical tool in its position relative to the 3D image computed in step (i) (‘projected localized position’), iv. determining a real position of the surgical tool on the 2D X-ray image (I.sub.2D) (‘real position’), b. determining a safety criterion from a similarity information between each real position and each projected localized position of the surgical tool on the at least one 2D X-ray image.

A computer program element and a device are provided for processing a 2D projection image generated during a procedure of fracture treatment of a bone. The computer program element comprises sets of instructions for detecting the reference body in the 2D projection image, detecting at least one element out of the group consisting of an instrument, an implant and an anatomical structure in the 2D projection image, and identifying a current state of the element, determining a state of progress of the procedure of fracture treatment, and providing information regarding steps to be performed next.