Editor—We read with interest the article on airway management for tonsillectomy, which concluded that there is widespread non-compliance in the use of disposable anaesthetic instruments. The authors quite correctly make the point that currently non-disposable surgical instruments are used. Surely, prion transmission is less likely to occur via anaesthetic than surgical instruments which are int...

BACKGROUND Advances in minimally invasive surgical techniques will require new types of instrument end-effectors for smaller, longer, and flexible instruments. These include a new class of multifunctional instruments capable of performing more than 1 task with a single set of working jaws. Furthermore, it is desired that multifunctional instruments be designed to provide improved dexterity comp...

In this contribution a selection of instruments has been taken from Section “ (,“ which comprises instruments for operations on the genito-urinary system in the male. This section is the largest in the whole collection of surgical instruments and contains nearis’ 400 exhibits. There are numerous examples of catheters, staffs, gorgets, lithotomy forceps, lithotrites and other instruments emj)loy...

BACKGROUND As a crucial part of an image-guided oral implantology system (IGOIS), intra-operative motion tracking is important in terms of accuracy and efficiency. The tracking method, including the relevant algorithms, is described in detail. METHODS The conventional CAD method is proposed to build the three-dimensional (3D) surgical instrument models. With the application of the optical tra...

Optical tracking systems are widely adopted in surgical navigation. An optical tracking system is designed based on the principle of stereo vision with high-precision and low cost. This system uses optical infrared LEDs that are installed on the surgical instrument as markers and a near-infrared filter is added in front of the Bumblebee2 stereo camera lens to eliminate the interference of ambie...