SpineAssist – an Israeli invention – is revolutionizing delicate spinal surgery. Judy Siegel-Itzkovich spoke to the innovative company’s CEO.

Many patients scheduled for a major spinal operation naturally worry that they might find themselves in a wheelchair due to a surgical error, or simple bad luck. While this happens only rarely, it is a possibility. The results of orthopedic surgery are as good as the specialist who performs it – but today, the risk is much reduced. Not only is there computer-assisted navigation for hip replacement, for example (introduced in the past decade), but now there is a robot that guides orthopedic surgeons in performing operations customized for each patient’s anatomy. The world’s first such robotic system, called SpineAssist, is Israeli – based on the work of a scientist at Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and marketed around the world by Mazor Robotics (www.mazorro botics.com) of Caesarea.