INNOVATIONS IN NEUROSURGERY

Abstract

The neurosurgical field has faced many challenges since its establishment in the past century. Conceptual, technical, and technological revolutions progressively reshaped the neurosurgical vision, pushing the previous boundaries to the next level. At the foundation of those revolutions, innovations were always the primum moves that induced a paradigm shift towards new frontiers. Operative microscopes, endoscopes, microneurosurgical instruments, neuronavigation systems, and intraoperative neuromonitoring represent just a few examples of the previous innovations that allow improving the neurosurgical healthcare. Nowadays, new technologies are emerging promising new revolutions in how neurosurgery vision is conceived. The upsurge of new visualization tools (e.g exoscope) equipped with extremely high magnification and augmented reality systems integration, confocal laser endomicroscopy to explore the surgical cavity at a cellular level, big data analysis through machine learning and artificial intelligence software, and a further and further hybridization with robotic neurosurgery will revolutionize the surgical practice beyond its present limits. In the following chapter, we will briefly present some of those innovations and discuss their implication in the neurosurgical practice