Image-guided neurosurgery

The linking of digitizing pointers to computer programs that reformat diagnostic studies has resulted in the development of image-guided surgery, also called frameless stereotactic surgery. With frameless stereotaxy, the neurosurgeon transposes the three-dimensional physical space of the patient's skull and cranial contents in the operating room with the three-dimensional image space of preoperative computerized tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans shown in the computer.