Image Guided Percutaneous Pedicle Screws without K-wires or Bone-Anchored Trackers

BACKGROUND CONTEXT: Image guidance for spine surgery improves accuracy of pedicle screw placement, reduces revision rates and radiation exposure. Current navigation and robot-assisted techniques for percutaneous screws rely on bone anchored trackers and K-wires. No technique for the placement of image guided percutaneous screws without K-wires has been described. A new skin-adhesive stereotactic patient tracker (SpineMask) eliminates both an invasive bone anchored tracker and K-wires for pedicle screw placement.