Review paper
Neuronavigation – image guided surgery, current application in neurosurgery

Computer-assisted neurosurgery applied in every day practice became a routine tool in nearly all cranial and many spinal procedures. Currently used frameless stereotactic systems provide the surgeon with navigational information, relating the location of instruments in the operative field to preoperative imaging data. Such information minimizes invasiveness by more accurately selecting the best trajectory to the lesion, ensures more precise identification of normal structures, and guides complete removal of a lesion. To achieve these goals, these systems utilize the stereotactic principle of registration of the patient with an imaging study. This review will present basic knowledge about image acquisition, methods of image-to-patient registration and image manipulation in preoperative planning. Also more prevalent techniques and available systems will be presented, along with examples of specific applications of surgical navigation in cranial and spinal procedures