Nihon rinsho. Japanese journal of clinical medicine
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The advanced technology of three-dimensional (3-D) medical imaging allows us to understand the patient specific anatomy in detail. Especially, in orthopedic surgery, treated spinal diseases or the disorders of bone and joints, the 3-D computed tomography(CT), such as multi-slice CT and helical CT is a useful tool for clinical diagnosis and surgical treatment. Since 1995, by the use of these 3-D CT image data, computer navigation system and surgical robot were developed and applied to a spinal instrumentation surgery and an artificial joint replacement. Now surgeons can perform the precise and safe surgical procedure by the computer guidance on the base of 3-D medical imaging.
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Recent years, magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging(MR-DTI, or DTI) is going to be clinically widespread. Especially, its application in fiber tract depiction based on diffusion tensor tracking is expected as a powerful tool for providing useful information in diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. ⋯ The advantages, disadvantages, and prospect of the fiber tracking are also discussed. In addition, a free software from our institute is introduced, which is for DTI analysis including fiber tracking, and is available in internet.
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Surgical operations have developed in the method which skillful surgeon's hands and eyes are used. However, to realize a new surgical therapy in the 21st century, it is necessary to use various advanced technologies; surgical robots, three dimensional medical images, computer graphics, computer simulation technology and others. ⋯ Surgical robots provide surgeons with advanced hand, but it is not a machine to do the same action of a surgeon using scissors or a scalpel. The advanced vision and hands available to surgeons are creating new surgical fields which are minimally invasive surgery, non-invasive surgery, virtual reality micro-surgery, tele-surgery, fetus surgery, neuro-informatics surgery and others in the 21st century.