Precise drilling
This year’s Gold award winner is a system
that assists doctors with keyhole cochlea
implant surgery to treat inner ear deafness
and profound deafness. This technique
requires a channel to be drilled from the
surface of the skull to the basal winding
of the cochlea which can be up to 35 mm
under the skullcap. Such a hole has a
diameter of 2 mm at the most, and is located
in the direct vicinity of anatomic structures
that require protection. For this reason, the
system has to work extremely precisely on
the one hand, and must fulfil hygienic medical
requirements such as steam sterilisation and
disinfection on the other. For this reason,
the surgical instrument navigation system
includes a drylin® N glide rail with two igus®
slides. In addition, several iglidur® X plain
bearings were used, which are excellently
suitable for use in medical applications thanks
to their lubricant-freedom.
