A CT-guided stereotactic system with direct verification of the centrage of the target before introducing the needle...

The author reports his experience with a stereotactic apparatus which gives more protection to patients during stereotactic operations. This apparatus allows the verification of the centrage of the target before puncturing the brain with the needle. In the most common stereotactic systems there is a headframe with three or four pins for the fixation to the skull. This apparatus is more simple: there is no frame and there is only one point of fixation to the skull: a small, L-shaped, aluminum bar, fixed in the right prefrontal region with two small screws. Because this system has only one point of fixation to the skull, it is movable like a bell. Besides the possibility of a direct verification of the centrage of the target, that has induced the author to study a new stereotactic apparatus for CT-guided stereotaxy, the small size of the apparatus means that it does not interfere with surgery in microneurosurgical stereotactic directed operations. This stereotactic apparatus can be used with CT-scan because it is aluminium with some parts in brass. The system, moreover, can be used whether scanner-dependent or scanner-independent, using two different softwares for calculation of the centrage of the target.