The Navitracker™

ORTHOsoft, Inc., a Montreal, O’Canada firm, is planning to introduce an advanced Computer-Assisted Surgery tracking device called the Navitracker™ at this year’s American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons Annual Meeting, to be held February 14-16 in San Diego. Medgadget has obtained the picture and description of the device by the company:

While the NavitrackER technology answers economic constrains in the market with the reduction in cost per surgery, it has superior tracking capability compared to spheres, giving clients a better product at reduced cost.
The key features and benefits are:
1. Increased visibility
Due to the placements of reflective discs in an angular arrangement the range of visibility compared to spheres increases from 127° to 135°.
2. Increased accuracy
The accuracy of the NavitrackER tracker technology is higher compared to spheres. NavitrackER also has a more linear behaviour showing a similar tracking error independent of angle towards the camera, whereas spheres accuracy depends on angle of the tracker towards the camera.
3. Increased robustness
The design of the NavitrackER tracker provides superior resistance to contamination with tissue and liquids. In tests spheres exhibited a 63% loss of visibility when exposed to animal tissue. Wiping with surgical gauze restored 30% of this lost visibility, but the remaining 33% was not recovered. NavitrackER shows minimal loss of visibility which is fully restored after wiping with no remaining loss of visibilty.
The NavitrackER technology will be compatible to all existing instruments and following software will be supported: Universal Hip, Universal Knee, TKR Ct-Less 1.0 to 1.11, THR Ct-Free 1.0, FluoroSpine and Durom.

Press release…
ORTHOsoft site…